Event-related oscillations (EROs) provide a complementary index of brain function to more traditional event-related potential (ERP) measures (Pfurtscheller and Lopes da Silva, 1999). EROs have been investigated as potential biomarkers of alcoholism or endophenotypic markers of the vulnerability to alcoholism. (Jones et al., 2006; Kamarajan et al., 2006; Kamarajan et al., 2004; Porjesz and Begleiter, 2003; Rangaswamy et al., 2007). EROs can be distinguished depending on whether they are or are not phase-locked to the stimulus (Pfurtscheller and Lopes da Silva, 1999). Quantified in the time/frequency domain, oscillatory activity that is phase-locked to the stimulus is referred to as evoked power, while changes of non-phase-locked activity can reflect decreases or increases in power (relative to the pre-stimulus period), referred to as event-related desynchronizations (ERD) or event-related synchronizations (ERS) respectively, the latter of which are also called induced oscillations.
