study using a semantic priming paradigm in alcoholics, it was reported that alcoholics exhibited an N400 component for both primed and unprimed words, whereas the control subjects elicited N400 only for unprimed words (cf. Porjesz and Begleiter 1995). Using a sentence paradigm, reduced amplitudes in alcohol-dependent subjects (Ceballos et al. 2003, 2005; Nixon et al. 2002) were reported. In a priming study (where some of the words were antonym pairs), Roopesh and colleagues (2010) reported that although control subjects showed significant attenuation of the N400 response to the primed word compared with the unprimed word, alcoholics did not show this differentiation. Similar results of lack of attenuation to primed stimuli were found with the same paradigm in HR offspring (Roopesh et al. 2009). These findings indicate that alcoholics and HR offspring manifest inefficient neural processing, responding similarly regardless of stimulus and task requirements.
