The current study is the first to examine ERO theta power during reward processing in a high risk sample, and has used a large sample of adolescent and young adult HR offspring from high density alcoholism families in the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). The present study is an extension of our previous work, and seeks to determine: (i) whether lower reward related ERO theta power and increased impulsivity observed in alcoholics [49] is also present in HR compared to LR subjects; and (ii) whether HR subjects, who manifested lower P3 amplitude during reward processing in our previous study [67], would also show decreased reward related ERO theta power underlying the P3 [68,69] wave while evaluating loss and gain. Specifically, the current study aims to address whether (i) deficits in the same measure (lower ERO theta power) that has been observed in alcoholics is also observed in HR subjects, and (ii) the same group (HR subjects) shows deficits in both measures (P3 and EROs) during reward processing. Although theta oscillatory activity during reward processing has been studied
