P300 amplitude decrements in children from families of alcoholic female probands.

A total of 70 age- and gender-matched children and their relatives who were from families that were either at high or low risk for developing alcoholism were studied and the children evaluated using event-related potential paradigms from both the auditory and visual modalities. The high-risk children were ascertained through families at exceptionally high risk for female alcoholism (half of all female first- and second-degree relatives were alcoholic), while low-risk control families had been selected for absence of alcoholism in first- and second-degree relatives. Results indicate that reduced amplitude of P300 and greater negativity of N250 characterize children from high-risk families when evaluated with an auditory task. The visual task discriminated high- and low-risk groups for male children only, consistent with earlier findings for high-risk families ascertained through a male alcoholic. Further, daughters of alcoholic mothers (biological father nonalcoholic) display significantly lower P300 than matched controls, indicating that transmission of alcoholism risk may be possible from mother to daughter without the necessity of paternal alcoholism.