There is a dearth of studies exploring N400 in alcoholism and few studies have examined priming and the N400 component in adult alcoholics. Nixon et al., (2002) examined processing efficiency using a sentence paradigm in which the responses to the terminal word were compared between alcohol dependent subjects and community controls. The authors reported reduced amplitudes of the difference waveform only in the temporal regions in alcohol dependent subjects. Using a sentences paradigm, Ceballos et al. (2003) showed increased N400 latencies in alcohol dependent subjects who also had a diagnosis of antisocial personality (ASP). In a later study examining single substance and dual substance dependence, Ceballos et al., (2005) reported that reduced N400 amplitude was associated with alcohol dependence irrespective of cocaine co-dependence when compared to non-dependent controls. Of the studies mentioned above, two showed a reduction in N400 amplitude and one study reported increased latency in adult alcoholics. These studies have not clarified if the N400 amplitude reductions were specific to differences in priming related activations. Hence, the current study was conducted to examine the semantic priming effects on
