In contrast to the considerable progress understanding the relationship between human brain oscillations and an increased risk for ethanol dependence, brain oscillations have not been well characterized in animal models of high ethanol preference. The present study is part of our ongoing investigation characterizing cortical oscillatory activity in rodent models of high and low ethanol preference (see Criado and Ehlers, 2009; Ehlers and Criado 2009). Results from our earlier studies suggested that P rats have significantly lower P3 amplitudes than NP rats (Ehlers et al., 1999). The P3 component in rats is a broad positive going potential that peaks between 250 and 400 ms (e.g., Ehlers et al., 1994; Shinba, 1997). The present findings show that the decrease in parietal P3 amplitudes found in P rats in response to noise tones (Ehlers et al., 1999) is related to decreases in evoked delta and alpha/beta phase locking. Our findings also showed that ERO energy in the parietal theta and alpha/beta bands was lower in NP than in P rats. However, these differences were only observed in response to the standard tones,
