of stimulus and task requirements indicates a basic diminution of differential inhibition. In healthy people, familiar stimuli are processed with less neuronal activity than unfamiliar stimuli. Evidence from monkey studies indicates that repeated stimuli elicit less neuronal firing than novel stimuli, suggesting inhibition of masses of neurons (Miller et al. 1991), which leads to increased synaptic efficiency. Differential inhibition allows the animal to efficiently process a given stimulus (e.g., target). Thus, reduced differential neuronal inhibition of relevant and irrelevant stimuli in alcoholics may account for the electrophysiological aberrations observed in alcoholics.
