FINE MOTOR SPEED DEFICITS IN ALCOHOLIC KORSAKOFFS-SYNDROME

Forty-two alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) patients (12 in study I, 30 in study II) averaged slower tapping speeds than 35 alcoholic cont rols on the Halstead-Reitan manual finger tapping task. KS subjects al so tapped slower than 26 normal volunteers in study II. Inverse relati onships were found between finger-tapping speed dominant hand and verb al word fluency in one sample, and tapping speed and time to completio n on Trail Making Part B and Tactual Performance Test in the other. Th e most powerful demographic predictors of tapping speed among age, edu cation, length of abstinence, and affective state were age and educati on. Tapping speed was associated with cognitive tasks measuring fronta l systems function (i.e., verbal fluency and Trail Making Part B) in K S subjects. There was no relationship between fine motor performance a nd general memory scores in the KS subjects. Decreased tapping speed f or KS patients was postulated to result from compromised fine motor ta sk initiation and persistence rather than mere slowing, as in Parkinso n's disease. These findings suggest disruption of frontocerebellar sys tems that influence motor generation and set maintenance not previousl y explored in KS.