Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
New researchReduced Prefrontal Efficiency for Visuospatial Working Memory in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Section snippets
Participants
Forty-five children 9 to 15 years of age (mean = 12.78, SD = 1.94) were recruited from an industry-funded treatment study, via e-mail announcements and ads/flyers posted throughout the hospital and on online volunteer sites. All parents/children gave informed consent/assent to participate in the study, and the institutional review board of the medical school approved all study procedures. Children and parents were compensated for participation.
Participants were evaluated using the Kiddie
Participants
Demographic and clinical data are shown in Table 1. There were no group differences in age, sex, handedness, race/ethnicity, or Full-Scale IQ (all p > .20).
Behavioral Data
As shown in Table 2, there were significant main effects of load for several behavioral measures, but there were no significant main effects of group or group × load interactions.
Working Memory–Related Activation
Children with ADHD and controls had similar patterns of activation for both working memory conditions compared to the control condition in a distributed
Discussion
These findings provide evidence of functional anomalies in DLPFC associated with visuospatial working memory in youth with ADHD. Youth with ADHD performed comparably to controls on a visuospatial N-back task and demonstrated similar patterns of frontoparietal activation, indicating that the 2 groups used similar mechanisms to store and update spatial positions of visual targets. Increases in working memory load yielded linear decreases in accuracy and response speed in both groups, and were
References (53)
- et al.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder endophenotypes
Biol Psychiatry
(2005) - et al.
A meta-analysis of working memory impairments in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2005) - et al.
Moderators of working memory deficits in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a meta-analytic review
Clin Psychol Rev
(2012) - et al.
Cortical capacity constraints for visual working memory: dissociation of fMRI load effects in a fronto-parietal network
Neuroimage
(2003) - et al.
The alpha-2A-adrenoceptor agonist, guanfacine, increases regional cerebral blood flow in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of monkeys performing a spatial working memory task
Neuropsychopharmacology
(2000) - et al.
Methylphenidate does not improve interference control during a working memory task in young patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Brain Res
(2011) - et al.
Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children–Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL): initial reliability and validity data
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1997) - et al.
Nonstationary cluster-size inference with random field and permutation methods
Neuroimage
(2004) - et al.
Psychophysiological and modulatory interactions in neuroimaging
Neuroimage
(1997) - et al.
Modeling regional and psychophysiologic interactions in fMRI: the importance of hemodynamic deconvolution
Neuroimage
(2003)
Regional specificity and practice: dynamic changes in object and spatial working memory
Brain Res
Is there evidence for neural compensation in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? A review of the functional neuroimaging literature
Clin Psychol Rev
The time course of activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex during top-down attentional control
Neuroimage
Specific versus nonspecific brain activity in a parametric N-back task
Neuroimage
Heightened interactions between a key default-mode region and a key task-positive region are linked to suboptimal current performance but to enhanced future performance
Neuroimage
Neuroscience of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the search for endophenotypes
Nat Rev Neurosci
Interrelations between executive function and symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention in preschoolers: a two year longitudinal study
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Meta-analysis of cognitive deficits in ultra-high risk to psychosis and first-episode psychosis: do the cognitive deficits progress over, or after, the onset of psychosis?
Schizophr Bull
Childhood executive function continues to predict outcomes in young adult females with and without childhood-diagnosed ADHD
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Architecture of the prefrontal cortex and the central executive
Ann N Y Acad Sci
Neuroimaging studies of working memory: a meta-analysis
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci
Mnemonic coding of visual space in the monkey's dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
J Neurophysiol
Intrinsic circuit organization of the major layers and sublayers of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the rhesus monkey
J Compar Neurol
Neural mechanisms of visual working memory in prefrontal cortex of the macaque
J Neurosci
Parieto-frontal interactions in visual-object and visual-spatial working memory: evidence from transcranial magnetic stimulation
Cereb Cortex
The contribution of alpha 2-noradrenergic mechanisms of prefrontal cortical cognitive function. Potential significance for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Arch Gen Psychiatry
Cited by (0)
Clinical guidance is available at the end of this article.
This article was reviewed under and accepted by deputy editor Ellen Leibenluft, MD.
Research was supported by the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation (A.C.B.), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (A.C.B.), and a Mount Sinai Robin Chemers Neustein Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (A.C.B.).
The authors thank Hanna Oltarzewska, BS, Cara Rabin, BA, and Joanne Philips, MS, of the Icahn School of Medicine for their invaluable support in data acquisition.
Disclosure: Dr. Newcorn is a recipient of research grants from Shire and is or has been an advisor/consultant for Alcobra, Biobehavioral Diagnostics, Enzymotec, GencoSciences, Neos, Shire, and Sunovian. Drs. Bédard, Clerkin, Krone, Fan, Halperin, and Schulz report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.