A landmark finding in the electrophysiology of human alcoholism is that individuals with alcohol dependence as well as their high risk offspring show low voltage P3(00) amplitude (for reviews, see Begleiter and Porjesz, 1990b; Porjesz and Begleiter, 1990, 1991; Polich et al., 1994; Porjesz and Begleiter, 1997; Porjesz et al., 2005). P3 is a robust, positive going ERP wave occurring around 300–700 ms following the onset of a stimulus, indicative of its context (Donchin and Coles, 1988) or importance (Sutton et al., 1978; Begleiter et al., 1983) during signal/cognitive processing. Since the first report by Begleiter et al. (1984) of low P3 amplitude in the sons of alcoholic fathers (in a study without any alcohol challenge), this finding has been replicated across many different experimental paradigms in male as well as female high risk subjects (i.e., offspring of alcoholics) in diverse samples (for reviews, see Porjesz et al., 2005; Rangaswamy and Porjesz, 2014).
