Effects of methylphenidate in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a near-infrared spectroscopy study with CANTAB®

Abstract

BackgroundA wide range of evidence supports the methylphenidate (MPH)-induced enhancement of prefrontal cortex (PFC) functioning and improvements in behavioral symptoms in patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Although working memory (WM) has been hypothesized to be impaired in patients with ADHD, no pharmacological studies have examined visuospatial WM (VSWM) with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS).Study aimThe present study was designed to investigate the acute effects of MPH on neuropsychological performance and hemodynamic activation in children with ADHD during VSWM tasks.MethodsThe subject group included 10 boys and 1 girl previously diagnosed with ADHD. Two VSWM tasks of differing degrees of difficulty were conducted. This is the first study on the pharmacological effects of MPH in children with ADHD to evaluate hemodynamic responses in the PFC with simultaneous NIRS.ResultsNo significant differences were found in the scores for both spatial working memory (SWM) and score of spatial span (SSP) tasks between the MPH-off and MPH–on conditions. However, a significant MPH-effect on changes in oxy-hemoglobin levels in the PFC was found only in the SWM task.ConclusionThese findings suggest that PFC activation might be affected by MPH, depending on the degree of difficulty of the particular task. Although the MPH-induced change on behavior may or may not be obvious, NIRS measurements might be useful for assessing the psychological effects of MPH even when performance changes were not observed in the cognitive tasks.

Prefrontal cortical responses in children with prenatal alcohol-related neurodevelopmental impairment: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

“…Changes in brain activation levels using fNIRS have been found to differentiate known clinical groups from typically developing children (Ishii-Takahashi et al, 2014, Wiley et al, 2014) and to be related to parent-reported measures of behavioral functioning (Perlman et al, 2014). Changes in activation obtained from fNIRS have already been used to assess the impact of pharmacological interventions for children with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (Oner et al, 2011, Schecklmann et al, 2011, Monden et al, 2012, Matsuura et al, 2014, Araki et al, 2015) but have not yet been applied to understanding individual differences in children with FASDs.…”

Postural Instability in Children with ADHD Is Improved by Methylphenidate

“…For example, chronic MPH significantly improves performance on aspects of the Go/NoGo test, and these improvements are associated with improvements in clinical response (Coghill et al, 2007 ). Moreover, prefrontal cortex activation might be affected by MPH, depending on the degree of difficulty of the task (Matsuura et al, 2014 ). However, in addition to the prefrontal cortex, MPH also increases the activity of basal ganglia and the cerebellum in children with ADHD (Czerniak et al, 2013 ).…”

From Clinical Application to Cognitive Enhancement: The Example of Methylphenidate

“…Moreover, WM is improved by MPD through dopaminergic transmission facilitation [ 48 ]. Although, the most recent findings suggest that impairments in visuospatial WM (VSWM) is common to individuals with ADHD [ 29 , 49 ], there is a limited number of studies investigating the effectiveness of MPD on VSWM in children with ADHD [ 50 , 51 ].…”