Cognitive Deficits in Adults With ADHD Go Beyond Comorbidity Effects

Abstract

Neuropsychological deficits in adults with ADHD go beyond comorbidity. Specific comorbid disorders may influence the neuropsychological functioning in adults with ADHD.

Could comorbid bipolar disorder account for a significant share of executive function deficits in adults with attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder?

“…We previously reported that BD and ADHD had significant and independent effects on Stroop color test measures of the executive function inhibitory control domain (14). The present findings suggest that WCST score deficits may be largely associated with BD rather than ADHD.…”

“…A review of studies on this topic pointed to similarities between BD and ADHD in their neuropsychological function (30). More specifically, mania and ADHD might share deficits in vigilance regulation (31) and sustained attention (14,32). By contrast, subtle differences in various areas of executive function emerge as specific to each disorder.…”

“…The psychiatric profile of the ADHD sample was assessed as described elsewhere (14,22), and the healthy subjects followed the same protocol. Briefly, the presence of ADHD and comorbid diagnoses was evaluated through the following semistructured interviews: (i) Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Epidemiologic version (K-SADS-E) adapted for adults (23,24) for assessing ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder; (ii) Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-IV-R) for assessing Axis I psychiatric comorbidities; and (iii) MiniInternational Psychiatric Interview for the diagnoses of anti-social personality disorder.…”

“…Doyle et al (13) reported executive function deficits in youth with BD and suggested that such deficits are not explained by comorbid ADHD. Addressing the extent to which neuropsychological deficits among adults with ADHD could be accounted for by comorbid disorders, Silva et al (14) verified that both BD and ADHD have independent effects on Stroop word, color, and color-word error scores, which are measures of the inhibitory control domain of executive function.…”

Cognitive heterogeneity in adult attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A systematic analysis of neuropsychological measurements

“…Similarly, ADHD patients with a comorbid psychiatric disorder showed greater neuropsychological deficits than ADHD patients without comorbidity (Hervey et al, 2004) and may represent a distinct subgroup, with different cognitive profiles (Fischer et al, 2007). However, it has also been shown that cognitive deficits in adult ADHD cannot be accounted for by comorbid disorders (Nigg et al, 2005a; Silva et al, 2013). Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most frequently observed comorbidity, and can co-occur with ADHD in up to 50% of the cases (Wilens et al, 2009).…”