Genetic Aspects of Alcohol Action on the Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Abstract

The electroencephalogram (EEG) is a classical non-invasive neurophysiological method to examine the functional state of the central nervous system in humans. Within the normal range, however, the EEG exhibits an enormous interindividual variation, whereas the EEG pattern remains fairly stable in a given person during adulthood. The interindividual variation is nearly completely genetic in origin. Identical twins have identical EEG patterns, even in old age (Heuschert, 1963) or when reared apart (Juel-Nielsen and Harvald, 1958), whereas fraternal twins on the average show a higher dissimilarity. When quantitative electronic analysis is applied, identical twins prove to be as similar to one another as the same subjects in repetitive experiments (Propping, 1977). Vogel (1970) worked out certain variants of the normal resting EEG and established simple modes of inheritance for at least some of the variants. One such variant is the low voltage EEG characterized by a complete lack of alpha waves, which appears to be inherited as an autosomal-dominant trait.