It has been frequently observed that offspring from families with a history of AUD exhibit deficient performance on attention and working memory tasks. Children with high familial density of AUD show poorer performance compared with children with a negative family history on the Digit Span subtest of the WISC-R, a test requiring focused attention (Corral et al. 1999). Tapert and Brown (2000) found that family history of alcohol dependence was an independent predictor of deficient performance on attention tasks during adolescence after accounting for previous alcohol use. During vigilance tasks, high risk youth show decreased blood-oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response in bilateral regions of the middle frontal and cingulate gyri (Spadoni et al. 2008). On working memory tasks, sons of male alcohol dependent individuals have been shown to perform more poorly compared to control subjects (Harden and Pihl 1995; Peterson et al. 1992). However, in sons of multi-generational AUD families, working memory deficits were more likely due to attention problems or other co-existing mental health issues (Wiers et al. 1998).
