While this is the first study to our knowledge that has examined the influence of any neuropsychiatric PRS on EEG coherence, previous research has demonstrated increases in resting state interhemispheric coherence among individuals with AUD, most prominent in theta, alpha band, indicating altered thalamo-cortical and cortico-cortical functional connectivity, and less prominent in beta bands [4,29,30]. As beta coherence values are (generally) considerably lower than theta and alpha values, and coherence is an absolute scale (rather than a ratio scale), the low level of beta coherence values may contribute to the lack of associations observed in this and other studies. In the current study, we found the most prominent effects concentrated in interhemispheric central-parietal pairs, extending to frontal and temporal pairs and across low frequency bands, with increases in coherences corresponding to increases in PRS. Recent work [4] identified resting state theta and alpha EEG coherence networks that were correlated with resting state executive control networks detected with fMRI in prior AD studies; when compared to light drinkers, individuals with AUD have reduced cortical grey matter [59,60] and white matter volumes, and reduced myelination [61,62].
