Response inhibition and attention processing in 5- to 7-year-old children with and without symptoms of ADHD: An ERP study

Abstract

The present study shows that specific attention problems can already be detected in the behavior and brain activity of 5- to 7-year-old children with symptoms of ADHD performing a CPT-AX task, and might be better indicators for the risk of developing ADHD than impulsivity measures.

Mapping Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder from Childhood to Adolescence—No Neurophysiologic Evidence for a Developmental Lag of Attention but Some for Inhibition

“…This agrees with our behavioral findings showing similar persistence of elevated scores on multiple CBCL scales, and of higher interview-derived inattention and hyperactivity/ impulsivity scores for the ADHD compared to the control group of this sample (4), even though earlier work had suggested a more prominent remission of behavioral impulsivity than of inattention scores (52). The findings also confirm that the cued CPT contains a well validated Go-NoGo task (53,54,55,56), and that a lower probability of the NoGo condition is not critical for typical anterior NoGo P300 topographies (57,58). Still, the inhibitory load on NoGo trials of this cued CPT is somewhat lower than in typical GoNoGo tasks, where Go probabilities of about 70% also require suppressing habitual, high probability responses.…”

Ten years on: A follow-up review of ERP research in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

“…Several studies not directly examining energetic factors also present ERP data interpreted as supporting the role of suboptimal energetic state regulation in AD/HD (Banaschewski et al, 2003;Banaschewski et al, 2004;van Mourik et al, 2007;Kratz et al, 2011), in children with AD/HDcom but not AD/HDin , and also in younger children displaying AD/HD characteristics (Spronk et al, 2008). Liotti et al (2009) presented a similar conclusion, with their results indicating deficient cognitive monitoring operations, rather than a simple account in terms of inhibitory control.…”

“…Children with ADHDcom have been reported to have problems with response preparation as indicated by the CNV to cue stimuli, and deficient response inhibition as indicated by Nogo-P3 (Valko et al, 2009). As outlined in the attention section, during a CPT task young children with ADHD characteristics did not show differences in ERP components related to conflict (Nogo N2) or inhibition (Nogo P3) processing (Spronk et al, 2008;see Table 1). …”

“…Wiersema et al, 2006), or questionnaire responses (e.g. Spronk et al, 2008). Surprisingly, other diagnostic issues continue in the literature, such as using old diagnostic criteria, e.g.…”

“…During a CPT, children with AD/HDcom were reported to show reduced frontal N1 and N2 amplitudes and parietal P2 and P3 amplitudes to target stimuli, indicating diminished evaluative and processing capabilities (Lawrence et al, 2005). Children aged 5-7 with AD/HD characteristics were reported to show an atypical Go-P3 effect suggesting deficient attentional resource allocation, and a difference in cue-P3 indicating impaired orienting (Spronk et al, 2008). In a rare longitudinal study that examined attention and inhibitory processing in DSM-III-R diagnosed ADHD participants over 2.5 years (mean age 10.8 years at time 1), reduced P3a and P3b to cue stimuli indicated persistent impairment in attention orienting and resource allocation (Doehnert et al, 2010;see Table 2).…”