Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. It is one of the most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders of childhood and therefore presents a very high prevalence rate. However the high rate of ADHD misdiagnosis makes the discovery of neurophysiological ADHD biomarkers an important clinical challenge. This study proposes a novel non-stationary ADHD biomarker based on Echo State Networks to quantify EEG dynamical changes between low attention/arousal states (resting with eyes closed, or EC) and normal attention/arousal states (resting with eyes open, or EO). Traditionally, EEG biomarkers have revealed an increase in stationary power in the theta band along with a decrease in beta, with these frequencies largely accepted to be altered in the ADHD population. We successfully verify the hypothesis that measured differences between these two conditions are altered in the ADHD population. Statistically significant differences between a group of ADHD subjects and an aged-matched control population were obtained in theta and beta rhythms. Our network discriminates between EO/EC EEG regimes in the ADHDs better than in controls, suggesting that differences in EEG patterns between low and normal arousal/attention states are larger in the ADHD population.
ADHD [10], there is not a clear consensus about this point. Therefore, finding solid evidence of neuropsychophysiological dysfunction in ADHD has become one of the most relevant challenges in mental health research.In recent years, electroencephalographic (EEG) measures in resting-state conditions have been widely used to monitor neurophysiological abnormalities in the ADHD population [11]. Most reported findings have shown that the ADHD population presents an increased power in fronto-central regions in low frequencies (typically in the theta band) [12,13] with decreased power in fast frequencies (typically in the beta band) [14,15]. Theta/beta ratio (TBR) has long been used as an ADHD biomarker [16]. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Neuropsychiatric EEG-Based ADHD Assessment Aid (NEBA®), which uses the theta/beta ratio of the EEG measured in the central EEG electrode Cz combined with a clinician's evaluation to support the diagnosis of ADHD. NEBA cutoffs for analysis were pre-established and are different for adolescents and children [17,18]. However, not all recent studies could validate the usage of TBR, as a biomarker for diagnosing ADHD. Recent studies documented an insufficient accuracy for TBR and theta power in distinguishing children with ADHD from a control group [11, 19 ,20]. Therefore the discovery of novel robust ADHD biomarkers remains a hot research topic.EEG band-power assessments assume a large degree of temporal stability in brain oscillations. Typically, in EEG analysis the signal is split into short-time epochs that are considered to be pseudo-stationary. Band power is estimated at each epoch and subsequently ...