Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders among children. Working memory deficits underlie many of the behavioural symptoms of ADHD. Alongside psychostimulant medications, strategies to improve working memory may play an important adjuvant role in the management of ADHD. In this study, we review the role of working memory deficits in ADHD, the evidence surrounding working memory training strategies in the management of the condition, and the factors affecting the success of these strategies in alleviating ADHD symptoms. More specifically, we review several non-pharmacological interventions that target working memory deficits in ADHD, with special emphasis on cognitive working memory training. We conclude that the development of evidence-based interventions such as computerised cognitive training (CCT) could provide an alternative or adjunct to the use of psychostimulants, especially in cases where side effects are a major issue.

It is well known that the efficacy of treatment effects, including those of placebos, is heavily dependent on positive expectations regarding treatment outcomes. For example, positive expectations about pain treatments are essential for pain reduction. Such positive expectations not only depend on the properties of the treatment itself, but also on the context in which the treatment is presented. However, it is not clear how the preceding threat of pain will bias positive expectancy effects. One hypothesis is that threatening contexts trigger fearful and catastrophic thinking, reducing the pain-relieving effects of positive expectancy. In this study, we investigated the disruptive influence of threatening contexts on positive expectancy effects while 41 healthy volunteers experienced laser-induced heat pain. A threatening context was induced using pain-threatening cues that preceded the induction of positive expectancies via subsequent pain-safety cues. We also utilised electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate potential neural mechanisms underlying these effects. Lastly, we used the Fear of Pain Questionnaire to address whether the disruptive effect of negative contexts on cued pain relief was related to the degree of fear of pain. As predicted, participants responded less to pain-safety cues (i.e., experienced more pain) when these were preceded by pain-threatening cues. In this threatening context, an enhancement of the N2 component of the laser-evoked potential was detected, which was more pronounced in fearful individuals. This effect was localised to the midcingulate cortex, an area thought to integrate negative affect with pain experience to enable adaptive behaviour in aversive situations. These results suggest that threatening contexts disrupt the effect of pain relief cues via an aversive priming mechanism that enhances neural responses in the early stages of sensory processing.

Social media usage (SMU) and its relationship with working memory (WM) and academic performance remain unclear, and there is a lack of experimental evidence. We investigated whether WM mediates the association between SMU and academic performance, including the roles of depression, anxiety, and disordered social media use as possible contributors. A sample of 118 undergraduate students aged 19 to 28 from Saudi Arabia performed a WM test twice; for one assessment, participants were required to interact with social media before the test, and the other test was preceded by painting online. We also measured grade point average (GPA), habitual social media usage (SMU), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), and disordered social media usage (SMDS). There was no significant difference between WM scores in the social media condition compared to the control condition, but when solely considering at least moderately depressed participants, social media use predicted significantly more errors in the social media condition compared to the control condition. Furthermore, higher SMDS scores were significantly predicted by higher PHQ-9 scores and more hours of habitual SMU. GPA scores were not predicted by WM performance or SMU. The present study is one of the first experimental attempts to compare the relationship between SMU and WM and highlights the priming effect of depression on the relationship between SMU and WM.

Intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is a life-threatening emergency, the incidence of which has increased in part due to an increase in the use of oral anticoagulants. A blood-fluid level within the haematoma, as revealed by computed tomography (CT), has been suggested as a marker for oral anticoagulant-associated ICH (OAC-ICH), but the diagnostic specificity and prognostic value of this finding remains unclear. In 855 patients with CT-confirmed acute ICH scanned within 48 h of symptom onset, we investigated the sensitivity and specificity of the presence of a CT-defined blood-fluid level (rated blinded to anticoagulant status) for identifying concomitant anticoagulant use. We also investigated the association of the presence of a blood-fluid level with six-month case fatality. Eighteen patients (2.1%) had a blood-fluid level identified on CT; of those with a blood-fluid level, 15 (83.3%) were taking anticoagulants. The specificity of blood-fluid level for OAC-ICH was 99.4%; the sensitivity was 4.2%. We could not detect an association between the presence of a blood-fluid level and an increased risk of death at six months (OR = 1.21, 95% CI 0.28–3.88, p = 0.769). The presence of a blood-fluid level should alert clinicians to the possibility of OAC-ICH, but absence of a blood-fluid level is not useful in excluding OAC-ICH.