EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS ELICITED BY INFREQUENT NON-TARGET STIMULI IN YOUNG CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS: FAMILY HTSTORY AND GENDER DIFFERENCES

This article analyses the visual and auditory event-relatedpotentials (ERPs) elicited by infrequent non-target stimuliin young children with alcoholic fathers. The aim was to studythe characteristics of the ERP waves specifically evoked bystimuli which capture the attention of the subject in youngones at risk for alcoholism, and to assess the effect of samplefactors which can modulate these characteristics, namely familyhistory of alcoholism and gender. There were no differencesrelated to risk for alcoholism on the auditory ERPs. However,males and females with a multigenerational family history ofalcoholism showed significant differences on visual ERP latencies,although different waves were affected for each gender. Femalesshowed a larger latency of the visual frontal negative wave,Nc, and males showed a larger latency of the visual parietocentralP300 wave.