measures as event-related coherence, phase-locking, and cross-frequency coupling. However, these task-related characteristics have been little studied from the genetic perspective. So far genetic studies of EEG-based connectivity measures were mostly limited to the resting state. Resting EEG characteristics have obvious advantage as candidate endophenotypes: first, they show stronger heritability relative to event-related measures; second, resting EEG recordings require minimal participation of the subject and can therefore be used in clinical samples where administration of cognitive tasks would be problematic. These studies provided important insights into the genetic underpinnings of some general characteristics of brain organization such as “small world network” properties (Smit et al., 2010) and suggested potentially useful endophenotypes. Nonetheless, extending this approach to event-related changes in neuronal synchrony and connectivity in cognitive tasks can take this line of research to a new level by adding more specificity in regard to dissociable cognitive processes and neural circuits.
