Sr. Steinhauer et Sy. Hill, AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS IN CHILDREN AT HIGH-RISK FOR ALCOHOLISM, Journal of studies on alcohol, 54(4), 1993, pp. 408-421
To determine if P300 and other event-related potentials (ERP) could se
rve as markers for risk of developing alcoholism, two groups of childr
en (8-18 years old) were tested. The high-risk (HR) group consisted of
51 children with an average of 4.1 first- and second-degree relatives
who were alcoholic. The low-risk group (LR) consisted of 42 children
who had no first- or second-degree relatives who were alcoholic or met
criteria for DSM-III Axis I psychopathology. Auditory stimuli varying
in conditional probability were presented during a silent counting ta
sk, and during a choice reaction task. P300 amplitude was smaller in h
igh-risk than low-risk children. When grouped according to gender and
developmental status (8-12 and 13-18 year olds), P300 showed the great
est reduction for the older high-risk males compared to low-risk males
. In addition, a previous finding was replicated: the prolonged centro
-frontal negativity (232-352 msec), which decreased with age in low-ri
sk children, showed significantly less reduction for high-risk childre
n. Risk status was not related to either amplitudes of the N100 and P2
00 components of the ERP, or to latencies of any components. Decreases
in P300 amplitude and delayed reduction of anterior negativity appear
related to developmental processes in high-risk children.