The lack of significant association between P3b amplitude and consumption quantity in this sample stands in contrast to previous research reporting that alcohol exposure contributes to changes in the P300 (Criado et al., 2008; Ehlers and Criado, 2010; Perlman et al., 2009), and that these changes become more marked with increased consumption (Floyd et al., 1997; Polich, 1986). Again, we attribute the current lack of significant association to the fact that our sample consisted of treatment-naïve individuals with less alcohol exposure than the treatment-seeking individuals featured in previous studies. Indeed, we found a similar pattern of non-significant associations in treatment-naïve adults (Fein and Andrew, 2011).
