Event-related potentials elicited by infrequent non-target stimuli in young children of alcoholics: family history and gender differences.

This article analyses the visual and auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by infrequent non-target stimuli in young children with alcoholic fathers. The aim was to study the characteristics of the ERP waves specifically evoked by stimuli which capture the attention of the subject in young ones at risk for alcoholism, and to assess the effect of sample factors which can modulate these characteristics, namely family history of alcoholism and gender. There were no differences related to risk for alcoholism on the auditory ERPs. However, males and females with a multigenerational family history of alcoholism showed significant differences on visual ERP latencies, although different waves were affected for each gender. Females showed a larger latency of the visual frontal negative wave, Nc, and males showed a larger latency of the visual parietocentral P300 wave.