Two experiments were conducted to determine whether hyperactive boys have a unique deficit in sustained attention. Groups with DSM-III diagnoses of attention deficit disorder (ADDH), conduct disorder (CD), ADDH + CD, and learning disorder were compared with normal controls on the

This study assessed brain function in 20 adolescent females with anorexia nervosa (AN) and 20 controls using event-related potentials (ERPs) and a battery of neuropsychological tests. In the AN group, N4 latencies for a nonverbal memory task were significantly longer than for a verbal task, and P3 latencies for the verbal task were significantly longer among anorexics as compared to controls. On the nonverbal task, the AN group failed to show a right > left hemispheric asymmetry for P3 amplitudes which was observed for controls. These group differences for P3 latency and amplitude were particularly pronounced in the central-parietal region of the head. Body Mass Index (BMI) in the anorexic group significantly predicted N4 amplitudes for the verbal task in the left hemisphere and P3 amplitudes for the nonverbal task in the right hemisphere. The two groups did not differ on any of the tests used to assess neuropsychological functioning. Eight nutritionally recovered patients and their matched controls were retested using the same procedures. Anorexics showed larger P3 amplitudes for the verbal as compared to the nonverbal task at follow-up. These findings provide evidence for localized brain dysfunction in anorexia nervosa that only partially normalizes with weight gain.

The association of child hyperactivity and parental psychopathology was explored by establishing lifetime DSM-III diagnoses and histories of childhood hyperactivity among the parents of boys, aged 7-11 yrs, in five diagnostic groups: attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH), conduct disorder (CD), ADDH + CD, emotional disorder (ED) and no disorder (NC). These groups were differentiated by a family history of parental psychopathology or childhood hyperactivity. ADDH + CD, CD and ED groups all had significantly higher rates of parental psychopathology than the ADDH and NC groups, for which rates were similar. Significantly more boys in the ADDH, CD and ADDH + CD groups had family histories of parental childhood hyperactivity than did boys in the ED and NC groups.

The hypothesis that hyperactive children have a deficit in sustained attention was investigated. Eighteen children who had attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH), aged 7 to 11 years, were compared with children who had conduct disorder (n = 15), mixed conduct disorder and ADDH (n = 26), emotional disorder (n = 18), or learning disability (n = 22), and with normal controls (n = 15

Subjects with oppositional disorder (OD, N = 21) and conduct disorder (CD, N = 22) were compared with normal controls (NC, N = 20) to determine whether OD is a distinct disorder. OD subjects exhibited high rates of associated attention deficit, emotional and learning disorders. Compared with NC, OD subjects had high rates of problems in social relationships and came from families characterized by marital fights, dysfunction, and paternal psychopathology. Compared with CD, OD was less often characterized by undersocialization and separations from fathers and more often characterized by dissatisfaction in the marital relationship. These results suggest that OD is a variant of CD rather than of normality.