body sway following a single dose of alcohol in 25 FHP and 25 FHN females (Eng et al., 2005). Despite this larger sample, FHP women only showed significantly lower intoxication ratings at a single time point. Even after drug use, drinking history and breath alcohol levels were used as covariates and body sway data were corrected and transformed for skewness, there were minimal differences between FHP and FHN women on ratings of intoxication or body sway. In a previous study conducted in our laboratory (Evans and Levin, 2003), the role of a paternal history of alcoholism in response to alcohol (0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 g/kg) was assessed in 16 FHP women compared to 16 FHN women. Consistent with previous studies showing that FHP individuals have a lower response to alcohol, FHP women were less impaired by alcohol than FHN women, as shown by scores on the Digit Symbol Substitution Task (DSST) and observer-ratings of drug effect, but FHP women tended to report greater positive subjective effects than FHN women. Thus, at this time, in contrast to men, there is limited compelling evidence that FHP women have a low response to alcohol compared to FHN women.
