FHN male offspring in a letter rhyming task (Schmidt and Neville, 1985). These studies indicate that the N4 deficits observed in alcoholics (Porjesz et al., 2002) may also be found in the HR individuals. This may be an index of vulnerability that predates alcohol dependence. Some of these electrophysiological findings observed have served as intermediate phenotypes or endophenotypes, which have been successfully used to study the genetic susceptibility to alcoholism (Begleiter and Porjesz, 1999). It is likely that this susceptibility may manifest as deficits in cognitive and linguistic functioning (Kuperman et al., 1995).
