Children of alcoholics: attention, information processing and event-related brain potentials.
Recent studies on biological markers and risk factors for alcoholism have distinguished between nonalcoholic individuals with a family history of alcoholism and those without such a family history on measures of event-related brain potentials. The main finding of these "high-risk" studies is a smaller amplitude of the P300 component in males with a history of paternal alcoholism. This relationship between P300 amplitude and a family history of paternal alcoholism has been observed in adults and children. Consequently, several authors have suggested that a reduced P300 amplitude could serve as a vulnerability marker for alcoholism. We address several conceptual and methodological issues involved in the study of event-related potentials in children at high risk for alcoholism. Subsequently, the ongoing high-risk study of the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research is described briefly.
van der Stelt
O
O
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Amsterdam/Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research, The Netherlands.
Gunning
W B
WB
Snel
J
J
Zeef
E
E
Kok
A
A
D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D015415:Biomarkers; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D012307:Risk Factors
D015415:Biomarkers