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Visual and Auditory Event‐Related Potentials in Young Children of Alcoholics from High‐ and Low‐Density Families
Author(s) -
Holguín Socorro Rodríguez,
Corral Montserrat,
Cadaveira Fernando
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1998.tb03620.x
Subject(s) - event related potential , psychology , audiology , developmental psychology , electroencephalography , auditory stimuli , medicine , perception , psychiatry , neuroscience
Event‐related potentials (ERPs), particularly the P3 wave, have been proposed as biological markers of genetic risk for alcoholism. The present study assesses the ERPs from 102 boys and girls (7 to 15 years old) divided into three groups: two groups of sons and daughters of alcoholic fathers, with and without other first‐ or second‐degree relatives affected, and a control group of children of nonal‐coholics. Both visual and auditory discrimination tasks with three stimuli (standard, target, and infrequent nontarget) were used. P3 amplitudes did not reach significant reduction for the high‐risk males and were complex for females. There were significant differences among females in P3 visual latency elicited by targets; delays in this variable were associated with multigenerational familial alcoholism. Results are discussed in light of the tasks used for eliciting the ERPs and the characteristics of the selected sample.