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. 2009 Dec;47(14):3095-104.
doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.07.005. Epub 2009 Jul 18.

The neural basis of sustained and transient attentional control in young adults with ADHD

Marie T Banich  1 , Gregory C Burgess, Brendan E Depue, Luka Ruzic, L Cinnamon Bidwell, Sena Hitt-Laustsen, Yiping P Du, Erik G Willcutt
Affiliations

The neural basis of sustained and transient attentional control in young adults with ADHD

Marie T Banich et al. Neuropsychologia. 2009 Dec.

Abstract

Differences in neural activation during performance on an attentionally demanding Stroop task were examined between 23 young adults with ADHD carefully selected to not be co-morbid for other psychiatric disorders and 23 matched controls. A hybrid blocked/single-trial design allowed for examination of more sustained vs. more transient aspects of attentional control. Our results indicated neural dysregulation across a wide range of brain regions including those involved in overall arousal, top-down attentional control, response selection, and inhibition. Furthermore, this dysregulation was most notable in lateral regions of DLPFC for sustained attentional control and in medial areas for transient aspects of attentional control. Because of the careful selection and matching of our two groups, these results provide strong evidence that the neural systems of attentional control are dysregulated in young adults with ADHD and are similar to dysregulations seen in children and adolescents with ADHD.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Behavioral performance on the Stroop task for individuals with ADHD and controls. A) Reaction Time B) Accuracy. Performance is shown for each group separately for each of the three blocks. Within each block, performance on block-specific trials (left) as well as performance on neutral frequent trials (right) is shown. Errors bars represent plus and minus on standard deviation.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Behavioral performance on the Stroop task for individuals with ADHD and controls. A) Reaction Time B) Accuracy. Performance is shown for each group separately for each of the three blocks. Within each block, performance on block-specific trials (left) as well as performance on neutral frequent trials (right) is shown. Errors bars represent plus and minus on standard deviation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Regions of significantly greater activity for controls than individuals with ADHD. A) Blocked activity: Regions of mid- and posterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the contrast of congruent blocks vs. fixation blocks. B) Single-trial activity: Regions of the anterior cingulate cortex and thalamus in the contrast of incongruent trials vs. neutral trials within the incongruent block.
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