Table 3.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) Findings in Children of Alcoholics (COA’s)¹

Variable	Research Findings
Resting Brain Wave Activity	Excess of EEG activity indicating heightened arousal in male COA’s (Ref. 1, but cf. Ref. 2) Increased amounts of certain brain waves in intoxicated COA’s compared with intoxicated family history-negative subjects (Ref. 1)
Brain Wave Responses to Stimuli	Delayed (Refs.1–3) and dampened (Refs.1–4) P300 response in male COA’s to complex (but not to simple) familiar events.

¹The findings are presented for COA’s as compared with family history-negative subjects except where indicated.

SOURCES: References (1) Tarter et al. 1990; (2) Sher 1991; (3) Pihl et al. 1990a; (4) Polich et al. 1994.