Confabulation

The clinical pattern was first described by Russian psychiatrist Sergei Korsakoff in his 1887–1891 papers on alcoholic amnesic patients, who he called the behaviour "pseudo-reminiscences." German psychiatrist Karl Bonhoeffer formalised the Latin term confabulation around 1900, and in 1901 drew the still-used distinction between momentary confabulation (provoked by questioning) and spontaneous confabulation (arising without prompting). The study was enriched by Carl Wernicke's neurological work, whose name became attached to the syndrome underlying many such cases.