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Auditory sensory gating deficit in abstinent chronic alcoholics.

Marco J, Fuentemilla L, Grau C

Neurodynamics Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron 171, 08035 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

P50 event-related potential was studied in abstinent chronic alcoholics to determine whether they had normal sensory gating. Repeated tones were presented to 17 recently detoxified chronic alcoholic patients and 17 healthy subjects while EEG was recorded. Low-resolution tomography (LORETA) was performed to obtain cerebral sources of P50. Abstinent chronic alcoholics showed reduced P50 sensory gating. Present results suggest an inhibitory deficit in early pre-attentive auditory sensory processing in chronic alcoholism.

Published 7 February 2005 in Neurosci Lett, 375(3): 174-7.
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