Long-term brain impairment in chronic alcoholics: N2-P3 cognitive potentials in a template-matching memory task

Neuropsychological measurements and N2-P3 visual cognitive potentials evoked by a template-matching visual-memory task were collected from seemingly intact chronic alcoholics and normal controls. Psychometric results were not significantly different between alcoholics and controls, but the N2-P3 cognitive potentials of the alcoholic population showed a decreased amplitude and an atypical interhemispheric pattern of latencies that point to alcohol-related deficits. The different functional nature and possibly separate intracranial origin of N2 and P3 suggest respective cortical and hippocampal localisation of these deficits. Cognitive brain potentials were a more sensitive indicator of cerebral impairment than psychometric data.