In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that variations in the CRHR1 gene are associated with the visual P3 amplitude of the event-related potential and with alcohol dependence. Our findings provide further evidence that brain electrophysiological measures evoked under cognitive conditions as endophenotypes in combination with genetic and other neurobiological information show great promise in deciphering the interaction of the subsystems involved in the pathophysiology of complex neuropsychiatric diseases. We expect that the identification of genes that regulate cognitive processes will be of enormous benefit to the field of psychiatric genetics.
