Reduced activation and inter-regional functional connectivity of fronto-striatal networks in adults with childhood Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and persisting symptoms during tasks of motor inhibition and cognitive switching
Section snippets
Background
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder of 1–5% prevalence, beginning in childhood (Faraone and Biederman, 2005), comprising age-inappropriate levels of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
The most consistent neuropsychological findings in children and adults with ADHD are deficits in motor response inhibition and cognitive switching (Boonstra et al., 2005, Rubia et al., 2001a, Rubia et al., 2007a,
Participants
Patients were 11 male right-handed adults aged 26–30 years (mean age (yrs) = 29, SD = 1), recruited from a 20-year prospective longitudinal epidemiological study (Taylor et al., 1991). Only male subjects were included to increase homogeneity. This is driven by the fact that ADHD is more prevalent in males in children (Costello et al., 2003, Gaub and Carlson, 1997) and adults (Biederman et al., 2004, Simon et al., 2009) and that gender differences exist in clinical manifestation (Biederman et al., 2002
Task performance
As expected no group differences were observed in probability of inhibition, suggesting that the tracking algorithm worked. For the Stop task, multivariate ANCOVA (with IQ as covariate) showed no group effect for the inhibitory variables of SSRT and the probability of inhibition (F = 2, df = 2, 20, p = 2.2). For the Switch task, repeated measures ANCOVA with group as factor and trial type as within-subject variable showed no significant effect of trial type on either reaction times (F = 2, df = 1, 21, p =
Discussion
Despite comparable task performance, adults with childhood ADHD and persistent inattentive/hyperactive behaviours showed reduced activation compared to healthy adults during both inhibition tasks in bilateral fronto-striatal brain regions as well as in the parietal lobe during the Switch task. Furthermore, they also showed reduced functional inter-regional connectivity in the Stop task in right inferior fronto-frontal, fronto-striatal, fronto-cingulate and fronto-parietal networks. The
Conclusions
Despite comparable task performance, adults with childhood ADHD and persistent inattentive/hyperactive behaviours showed reduced activation compared to healthy adults in bilateral fronto-striatal brain regions during the Stop and Switch tasks, and additionally in the parietal lobe during the Switch task. Within patients, the severity of symptoms was negatively associated with activation in these fronto-striatal, parietal and cerebellar regions. Furthermore, during the Stop task, the adults with
Authors’ contributions
AC and KR drafted the manuscript. RH performed the imaging and clinical data acquisition, and pre-processed the imaging data. AC and KR analysed the clinical, behavioural and imaging data. VG assisted the analyses of the imaging data. CE performed the functional connectivity analyses. KR and ET conceived and designed the MRI study, and obtained funding for imaging controls and patients. ET was responsible for the psychometric assessment of patients and methods description regarding patients. KR
Role of funding source
The Wellcome Trust, MRC or Koplowitz foundation had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of interest
None of the authors has any conflict of interest to declare.
Acknowledgement
The research was supported by grants from the Medical Research Council (G9900839) and The Wellcome Trust (053272/Z/98/Z/JRS/JP/JAT). AC was supported by a fellowship from the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation.
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2022, Computers in Biology and MedicineCitation Excerpt :Furthermore, the nCREANN results revealed that the ADHD maps tend to be more left-lateralized than TD subjects with almost symmetric interhemispheric connectivity patterns. This abnormality in the right hemisphere was also found in previous fMRI studies where ADHDs showed a hyper-functioning in the left frontal regions [35], and reduced activation in right inferior and orbital frontal and in bilateral temporo-frontal cortices as well as reduced functional networks connecting the occipital lobes with other cortical regions [5,36]. This pattern was also found in EEG studies [14,37,38].