Due to the difficulty in interpreting the role of inhibition in ERP studies that are designed to establish “prepotency” of the Go response to enhance inhibitory efforts (namely weighted with more Go than NoGo trials), the present study was designed to remove this bias by having an equal number of Go and NoGo trials. It was reasoned that the absence of this bias (confound) would make the interpretation of the NoGo N2 “effects” more discernible. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the N2 differences between alcoholic and normal control subjects as well as between task conditions using an equal probability Go/NoGo task. Further, an attempt was made to localize the sources of the current density occurring in the time-range of the N2 component in three-dimensional space within the brain using standardized low resolution electromagnetic tomography analysis (sLORETA). With this sLORETA technique we aimed to determine group differences as well as differential characteristics of this current density between Go and NoGo in alcoholics and controls.
