Using data from the Amsterdam twin study cited above (van Beijsterveldt et al., 1996, 1998b) Anokhin et al. (2001), investigated the structure of genetic and environmental relationships between visual oddball P300 amplitude and spectral band powers of resting EEG recorded independently in the same subjects. A multivariate genetic analysis of twin data revealed substantial genetic overlap between the spectral content of the resting EEG and P3 amplitude: individuals with greater delta- and theta-band activity at rest showed larger P300 components in the visual oddball task, and vice versa. Importantly, this relationship was largely due to common genetic factors influencing both resting EEG and ERP. Since resting-state brain oscillation can be considered as baseline relative to event-related perturbations of that activity giving rise to ERPs, these results suggest that genetic influences on P3 amplitude are mediated in part by spectral properties of baseline, resting-state EEG. However, the results also indicated a significant residual genetic influence on P3 amplitude that was not shared with the resting EEG, with genetic factors specific to P300 accounting for 26% of the total P300 variance.
