The inhibitory control characteristic of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with emotional dysregulation: evidence from event-related potentials (ERPs)

Abstract

Objective Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent neurodevelopmental condition in children. Emotion dysregulation (ED) exacerbates functional impairment severity in children with ADHD, and previous research suggests that ED may be linked to inhibition control deficits. Method We utilized the Anxiety/Depression, Aggression, and Attention scales of the CBCL (CBCL-DESR) to categorize participants into three groups: ADHD with emotion dysregulation (ADHD with DESR, n = 15), ADHD without emotion dysregulation (ADHD without DESR, n = 22), and Typical Development Children (TDC, n = 35). The Two-Choice Oddball task was employed to assess inhibitory control characteristics and record synchronous ERP. Repeated measures ANOVA and multiple linear regression was used to analysis the relationship between inhibition control deficit and emotion dysregulation. Results In the measurement of behavioral inhibit control functioning, we found that ADHD patients had a lower overall response accuracy than TDC. ADHD patients with emotion dysregulation had even longer overall response time than ADHD without emotion dysregulation and TDC. The original waveform analysis showed the larger amplitude for deviant stimuli than for standard stimuli in ADHD with emotional dysregulation group and lower amplitude for ADHD with emotional dysregulation than for ADHD without emotional dysregulation and TDC groups in deviant stimuli. The deviation-standard difference wave analysis showed that the N2 difference wave of ADHD with emotion dysregulation group was significantly larger that of ADHD without emotional dysregulation and TDC groups and we find inhibitory control-related EEG indicators (N2, P3) in predicting emotional dysregulation in ADHD patients. Conclusions ADHD children with emotional dysregulation showed more severe inhibitory control impairment on behavioral indicators, and differential N2 amplitude together with differential P3 amplitude can predict ADHD children with emotional dysregulation independently. The results could provide enlightening evidence for early detection and intervention targets in this subtype of children with ADHD.