VISUAL AND AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS IN YOUNG-CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS FROM HIGH-DENSITY AND LOW-DENSITY FAMILIES

Event-related potentials (ERPs), particularly the Pa wave, have been p roposed as biological markers of genetic risk for alcoholism. The pres ent 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 alcoh olic fathers, with and without other first-or second-degree relatives affected, and a control group of children of nonalcoholics. Both visua l and auditory discrimination tasks with three stimuli (standard, targ et, and infrequent nontarget) were used. P3 amplitudes did not reach s ignificant reduction for the high-risk males and were complex for fema les. There were significant differences among females in P3 visual lat ency 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 t he selected sample.