Heritability of event-related brain potentials in families with a history of alcoholism

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) are altered in patients with a variet y of psychiatric disorders and may represent quantitative correlates of dis ease liability that are more amenable to genetic analysis than disease stat us itself. Estimates of heritability are presented for amplitude and latenc y of the N1 and P3 components of the ERP measured at 19 scalp locations in response to visual and auditory stimuli for 604 individuals in 100 pedigree s ascertained as part of the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcohol ism. Significant heritabilities were found for visual P3 amplitude in respo nse to all stimuli and for visual P3 latency in response to target and nove l, but not nontarget, stimuli. Heritability of visual N1 latencies was unif ormly low, whereas heritability of visual N1 amplitude was significant for all electrodes in response to the nontarget stimuli but only for posterior electrodes in the other two stimulus conditions. Heritabilities for auditor y target P3 were similar to those of the visual stimuli, with auditory targ et P3 amplitudes and latencies both demonstrating significant heritability, For auditory P2 in response to non-target stimuli, peak amplitude was heri table, but latency was not. Auditory N1 amplitude and latency were signific antly heritable for both target and non-target conditions and did not demon strate the anterior/posterior patterning obtained for visual N1 amplitude. This study represents the first systematic assessment of heritability of th ese potential neurophysiological markers in families with a history of alco holism and suggests that many of these ERP phenotypes have heritabilities s trong enough to justify genomic screening for loci jointly influencing ERP abnormalities and liability to alcoholism. Am. J, Med, Genet, (Neuropsychia tr, Genet,) 88:383-390, 1999, (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.