For the past three decades, our laboratory as well as several others, have repeatedly observed significantly lower amplitudes of the visual P3(00) component of the Event-related potential (ERP) in both abstinent alcoholics and offspring of alcoholics. More recently we have identified a number of additional neurophysiological anomalies in both abstinent alcoholics and their offspring. This set of deficient neuroelectric features is not the result of excessive alcohol intake but appears to be related to family history of alcoholism. We have recently proposed that these anomalies may be indicative of increased central nervous system (CNS) disinhibition. While this disinhibition is manifested subclinically at the neurophysiological level, it is also present at the behavioral level in such conditions as attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, antisocial personality disorder, etc. A critical issue, which remains to be examined, is the functional significance of this putative disinhibition. We have proposed that this underlying neural disinhibition is involved in a predisposition to develop alcohol dependence. It is now well established that clinicians consider craving an important contributor to the development and maintenance of alcoholism and have postulated that it is responsible for relapse. We hypothesize that the neuroelectric features that are related to CNS disinhibition may provide insights into the neurobiology of craving. To fully understand craving we must identify the brain mechanisms that lead to this overwhelming urge to drink.In the proposed project we plan to further investigate our findings of electrophysiological disinhibition in alcoholics by examining the underlying neural oscillations and their synchrony during ERP tasks, as well as during the resting condition. Characteristics of these oscillations appear to be aberrant in abstinent alcoholics and a goal of the proposed project is to identify these anomalies. We hypothesize that the spatial-temporal dynamics of these neural oscillations reflect an imbalance between excitation and inhibition in alcoholics. There is evidence in the literature that electrophysiological measures may be better indices of relapse in alcoholics than any clinical measures. We propose to identify brain oscillations that are predictive of relapse and explore the role of neurophysiological features of CNS disinhibition in predicting relapse in alcoholic patients
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