“Ten dollars today or 50 dollars after one month?” Temporal discounting in Korsakoff syndrome

Objective:
Little research has investigated decision making in patients with Korsakoff syndrome (KS). Specifically, to our knowledge, there is a lack of research investigating whether patients with KS may tend to prefer immediate over future rewards (i.e., temporal discounting). Further, we investigated the relationship between temporal discounting and inhibition.

Methods:
We, for the first time, invited patients with KS and control participants to perform a temporal discounting task, in which they answered questions probing preferences between an immediate, but smaller amount of money, and a delayed, but larger amount of money (e.g., “would you prefer 10 dollars today or 50 dollars after one month?”). Furthermore, inhibition was measured using the Stroop Colour Word Test.

Results:
Analysis demonstrated higher temporal discounting in patients with KS than in control participants. Temporal discounting in both populations was significantly correlated with inhibition.

Conclusions:
Patients with KS may have difficulties to suppress the temptation of smaller, but immediate, rewards.