There have been 3 EFE ERP studies comparing alcoholics with an average of about 2 weeks of abstinence to NAC (Maurage et al., 2008a, 2008c, 2008d). EFE effects may involve perceptual (early), attentional (early to mid-latency), and/or decisional processes. Maurage et al., (2008c), using an oddball paradigm found no group effect on N100 or N170 latencies or amplitudes to EFEs of anger and disgust. Alcoholics did have later N2b and P3 components (Maurage et al., 2008a, 2008c), only the latter of which showed reduced amplitude in alcoholics. These results are consistent with general target detection task findings in alcoholics and may not be dependent on the stimuli being EFEs.
