ERP and RT delays in long-term abstinent alcoholics in processing of emotional facial expressions during gender and emotion categorization tasks.

Background: There is considerable evidence that alcoholics differ from nonalcoholics in the processing of stimuli that have emotional content. The current study examines those differences that are present in multi-year abstinent individuals.

Methods: We compared reaction time (RT), accuracy, and Event Related Potentials (ERP) measures in long-term abstinent alcoholics (LTAA, n = 52) with that in age- and gender-comparable nonalcoholic controls (NAC, n = 47).