Neurophysiological factors associated with cognitive deficits in children with ADHD symptoms: EEG and neuropsychological analysis.

Abstract

We neuropsychologically assessed cognitive deficits in 109 children with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 51 children with typical development aged 7-8 years and 9-10 years and visually analyzed resting-state electroencephalography (EEG). The EEG recordings of children with ADHD more frequently contained EEG patterns of frontothalamic non-optimal functioning compared with controls, reflected by groups of bilaterally synchronous frontal theta waves (FTWs) and right hemisphere local deviations of brain electrical activity. We found cognitive impairments associated with ADHD in children with different deviations of resting-state EEG. Children with FTWs in both age groups exhibited pronounced difficulties in programming, regulation and control (executive functions), and verbal performance. Children with right hemisphere local EEG abnormalities had executive dysfunction combined with difficulties in nonverbal performance. Executive performance in typically developing children significantly improved from 7-8 to 9-10 years of age. An analysis of neuropsychological scores in children with ADHD symptoms from age 7-8 to 9-10 with the same EEG abnormalities indicated specific age-related improvement of cognitive abilities. In children whose EEG showed patterns of fronto-thalamic involvement presented significant improvement in executive and verbal performance from 7-8 to 9-10 years of age. Overcoming the same age gap in children with right hemisphere local EEG deviations significantly improved only nonverbal performance, whereas improvements in executive function were not statistically significant.

Psychological Concepts of Activity Theory in Child Neuropsychology

“…At the same time, it is not correct to suppose that each cases of attention deficit disorder have always the same constellation of symptoms, central mechanisms and actions. Previous experience and research have shown that different neuropsychological variant of syndromes are possible, when children of different ages receive diagnosis of "attention deficit disorder" (Machinskaya et al, 2014;Glozman & Shevchenko, 2014;Solovieva & Quintanar, 2014a, 2015a.…”

Análisis neuropsicológico diferencial en dos casos diagnosticados con TDAH

“…Los estudios de EEG a partir del aná-lisis cualitativo visual han identificado ausencia de diferencias significativas entre el estado de desarrollo cortical de niños preescolares y escolares diagnosticados con TDAH y niños del grupo control (Machinskaya, Semenova, Absatova, & Sugrobova, 2014;Machinskaya, Sugrobova, & Semenova, 2015;Solovieva, Machinskaya, Quintanar, Bonilla, & Pelayo, 2009). Lo anterior descarta una relación unilateral de esta dificultad con el trastorno ejecutivo en la infancia.…”

“…En otros estudios se reportan evidencias obtenidas con empleo de técnicas de neuroimagen (Dickstein, Bannon, Castellanos, & Milham, 2006;Emond et al, 2009;Rubia et al, 2009) sobre la diversidad de bases cerebrales del TDAH. Se reporta que los síntomas del TDAH pueden ser situados no sólo en sectores frontales, pues se encuentran alteraciones en otras zonas corticales como el giro precentral (Quintanar et al, 2011) (Proal et al, 2013) y se refiere además la incidencia de estructuras subcorticales en distintos niveles (Machinskaya et al, 2014).…”

Neuropsychological Performance of Adolescents with High and Low School Performance

“…The elementary school period is as well characterized for the functional maturation of brain structures that provide downward modulation from specific frontal lobe areas, taking part during the visuospatial information processing (Machinskaya, Semenova, Absatova, & Sugrobova, 2014). The spatial analysis and synthesis mechanism, located on the second brain unit, guarantees the perception and production of essential features and their location (analytical component) as well as the perception and production of forms, the metric aspects and proportions of the objects (global component) ).…”