ABSTRACT
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder that affects children. However, the traditional scale-based diagnosis methods rely more on subjective experiences, leading to a demand of objective biomarkers and quantified diagnostic methods. This study proposes a quantitative approach for identifying ADHD tendency based on fingertip pressing force control paradigm with immersive visual feedback. By extracting nine behavioral features from reaction time and dynamic force fluctuation features with high temporal and amplitude resolution, the proposed method can effectively capture the continuous changes in attention levels for ADHD diagnosis. The extracted features were analyzed using independent sample t-test and Pearson correlation to determine their association with ADHD-RS scale scores. Results showed that 12 statistical indicators were effective for distinguishing ADHD children from typically developed children, and several features of force control ability were also associated with core ADHD symptoms. A support vector machine (SVM) based classifier is trained for ADHD diagnosis and achieved an accuracy of 78.5%. This work provides an objective and quantitative approach for identifying ADHD tendency within a short testing time, and reveals the inherent correlation between the attention levels and the extracted features of reaction time and force fluctuation dynamics.
Subject(s)
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity , Humans , Child , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/diagnosis , Attention , Reaction Time , Support Vector MachineABSTRACT
In addition to higher-order executive functions, underlying sensory processing ability is also thought to play an important role in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). An event-related potential feature, the mismatch negativity, reflects the ability of automatic sensory change processing and may be correlated with AD/HD symptoms and executive functions. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) in adults with AD/HD. Twenty eight adults with AD/HD and 31 healthy controls were included in this study. These two groups were matched in age, IQ and sex. In addition, both groups completed psychiatric evaluations, a visual ERP task used to elicit vMMN, and psychological measures about AD/HD symptoms and day-to-day executive functions. Compared to trols, the late vMMN (230-330 ms) was significantly reduced in the AD/HD group. Correlation analyses showed that late vMMN was correlated with executive functions but not AD/HD symptoms. However, further mediation analyses showed that different executive functions had mediated the relationships between late vMMN and AD/HD symptoms. Our findings indicate that the late vMMN, reflecting automatic sensory change processing ability, was impaired in adults with AD/HD. This impairment could have negative impact on AD/HD symptoms via affecting day-to-day executive functions.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Exploring how abnormal brain function in children with ADHD affects executive function and ultimately leads to behavioral impairment provides a theoretical basis for clinically targeted neurotherapy and cognitive training. METHOD: Amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and seed-based FC were analyzed in 53 ADHD and 52 healthy controls. The "brain-cognition-behavior" relationship was further explored using mediation analysis. RESULTS: ADHD showed abnormal local activation in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), inferior occipital gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and reduced FC between the IFG and the cerebellum. ADHD diagnosis may affect ALFF of MTG and further modulate shift and finally affect inattentive symptoms. It may also affect the total symptoms through the FC of the IFG with the cerebellum. CONCLUSION: ADHD showed extensive spontaneous activity abnormalities and frontal-cerebellar FC impairments. Localized functional abnormalities in the MTG may affect the shift in EF, resulting in attention deficit behavior.
