Altered Functional Connectivity in Children with ADHD Revealed by Scalp EEG: An ERP Study

Abstract

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental brain disorders in childhood. Despite extensive researches, the neurobiological mechanism underlying ADHD is still left unveiled. Since the deficit functions, such as attention, have been demonstrated in ADHD, in our present study, based on the oddball P3 task, the corresponding electroencephalogram (EEG) of both healthy controls (HCs) and ADHD children was first collected. And we then not only focused on the event-related potential (ERP) evoked during tasks but also investigated related brain networks. Although an insignificant difference in behavior was found between the HCs and ADHD children, significant electrophysiological differences were found in both ERPs and brain networks. In detail, the dysfunctional attention occurred during the early stage of the designed task; as compared to HCs, the reduced P2 and N2 amplitudes in ADHD children were found, and the atypical information interaction might further underpin such a deficit. On the one hand, when investigating the cortical activity, HCs recruited much stronger brain activity mainly in the temporal and frontal regions, compared to ADHD children; on the other hand, the brain network showed atypical enhanced long-range connectivity between the frontal and occipital lobes but attenuated connectivity among frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes in ADHD children. We hope that the findings in this study may be instructive for the understanding of cognitive processing in children with ADHD.

Abnormal Structure and Function of Parietal Lobe in Individuals With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Systematic Review Study

“…In children with ADHD, atomoxetine increases the activity of the parietal lobe (Bush et al, 2013), anodal tDCS improves working memory performance (Salehinejad et al, 2020), and dTMS increases the activity of the right parietal lobe and improves working memory performance (Bleich-Cohen et al, 2021). Lower connectivity of the IPL and the PPC is associated with ADHD symptoms, which are associated with weakness in the control of irrelevant auditory and visual stimuli and inattention symptoms (Chen et al, 2021;Kolodny et al, 2020;Salmi et al, 2020;Schneider et al, 2010;Schwerdtfeger et al, 2013).…”

Temporal Alpha Dissimilarity of ADHD Brain Network in Comparison With CPT and CATA

“…Alpha rhythms are typically observed during resting or idling states and are associated with consciousness and moderate activity. Beta rhythms, on the other hand, are often found in frontal or central areas [49,50] and are associated with spontaneous activity, such as problem-solving and attention [55]. Fig.…”

EEG Global Coherence in Scholar ADHD Children during Visual Object Processing

“…However, the identification of EEG diagnostic biomarkers is complicated by the disorder's heterogeneity [25]. Chen et al [26], used evoked eventrelated potentials (ERP) during oddball P3 task. They found that healthy children recruited much stronger brain activity, mainly in the temporal and frontal regions, compared to ADHD children.…”