on these results, it appears that the inability to discriminate between primed and unprimed words and lack of priming effect seen in alcoholics is already present in high risk offspring of alcoholics prior to alcohol dependence. The results suggest that the lack of N4 attenuation to the primed word in HR subjects might reflect another aspect of a vulnerability to alcohol dependence that may have genetic underpinnings. Therefore, the lack of N4 attenuation to the primed stimuli found in nonalcoholic sons of alcoholics may be an electrophysiological endophenotype that characterizes the genetic vulnerability to alcohol dependence.
