Abstract
Children fitted with hearing aids (HAs) and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often have marked difficulties concentrating in noisy environments. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanism of auditory and visual attention deficits in a direct comparison of both groups. The current functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study was the first to investigate the behavioral performance and neural activation during an auditory and a visual go/nogo paradigm in children fitted with bilateral HAs, children with ADHD and typically developing children (TDC). All children reacted faster, but less accurately, to visual than auditory stimuli, indicating a sensory-specific response inhibition efficiency. Independent of modality, children with ADHD and children with HAs reacted faster and tended to show more false alarms than TDC. On a neural level, however, children with ADHD showed supra-modal neural alterations, particularly in frontal regions. On the contrary, children with HAs exhibited modality-dependent alterations in the right temporopolar cortex. Higher activation was observed in the auditory than in the visual condition. Thus, while children with ADHD and children with HAs showed similar behavioral alterations, different neural mechanisms might underlie these behavioral changes. Future studies are warranted to confirm the current findings with larger samples. To this end, fNIRS provided a promising tool to differentiate the neural mechanisms underlying response inhibition deficits between groups and modalities.
Highlights
The current study provided first evidence for differences in response inhibition in children with hearing loss (HL) and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared to typically developing children (TDC) across and between the auditory and visual modality
Group-specific altered activation patterns compared to TDC were revealed, which might underlie the observed behavioral changes
While children with HL fitted with Hearing aid (HA) mainly showed differences in neural activity during the auditory condition, children with ADHD showed alterations across modalities
Summary
Cognitive control develops continuously throughout childhood, and response inhibition plays an important role in ensuring that only appropriate responses are given [1,2,3]. Brain Sci. 2020, 10, 307 redundantly across senses can be promoted, and conflicting information impairs response inhibition efficiency in typically developing (TD) individuals [7], each sensory modality carries a domain specific dominance and offers an individual informative value. The importance of perceptual processes has been reported for response inhibition mechanisms in TD adults between the visual and tactile modality [8]. The tactile modality was shown to be more efficient than the visual modality in triggering successful response inhibition [8]. Behavioral and neural response inhibition mechanisms might depend on the stimulus modality in a similar way
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
