Confabulation resilience of the developing brain: A brief review

Objectives: To investigate a possible confabulation resilience of the developing brain. Methods: We performed a literature search on confabulation in PubMed and identified all empirical studies of children and adolescents under the age of 18. Results: The analysis identified only three case studies of confabulation in children under the age of 18 of 286 empirical studies of confabulation. This reveals a striking discrepancy in the number of reported cases caused by brain injury between children and adults. We hypothesize that there may be a resilience toward confabulation in the developing brain and present three tentative explanations regarding the possible underlying mechanisms. Conclusions: Additional awareness on the scarcity of reported cases of confabulation in children could lead to important insights on the nature of confabulation and greater understanding of the resilience and plasticity of the developing brain.