Attentional Deficit, Alcoholism, and P300 Amplitude essays

Attentional Deficit, Alcoholism, and P300 Amplitude essays Two of the largest issues concerning youth in the United States today are psychiatric illness and drug abuse. Increasingly large numbers of young people are being diagnosed with various neurological problems, such as depression, learning disabilities, and behavioral problems. In fact, the incidence of children diagnosed with ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, has risen from 4.4 million in 1997 to six million today. Drug use and abuse amongst young adults is also on the rise, with alcohol second only to cigarettes as the drug most commonly abused by teenagers. This paper will explore the neurological properties behind attention and alcohol abuse in relation to deficiencies in cognitive functioning; specifically that of working memory and attentional processing. Such deficiencies are validated by decreased amplitude at positive 300 ms (P3). in the measurement of event-related potential for certain cognitive tasks. These shared properties, along with other psychological evidence, show a possible correlation between ADHD and alcohol abuse, and consequently reveal many implications involving diagnoses and treatment of such disorders. One article that is particularly relevant to these issues is "Meta-Analysis of P300 Amplitude From Males at Risk for Alcoholism," by John Polich, Vicki E. Pollock, and Floyd E. Bloom. Since P3 amplitude is dependant on many variables and is therefore very hard measure in an experimental setting, this article is basically an analysis of numerous studies, all if which include testing for correlations between abnormal waveforms at P300 ms. and risk for alcoholism. In addition, all the studies reviewed in the article are concerned with the comparison of P3 measurements in control subjects and sons of alcoholics; this criterion was instated given that the only conclusive information available at the time (the article was published in 1998) regarding genetic risk for alcoholism related to...