Abstract
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental condition characterized by diminished attentional control. Critically, these difficulties are related to negative consequences in real-life functioning both during development and into adulthood. There is now growing evidence that modulating the underlying neural circuits related to attention can improve behavior and brain function in children with ADHD. We have previously shown that game-based digital therapeutics targeting a key neural marker of attention–midline frontal theta (MFT)–yield positive effects on attentional control in several populations. However, the effects of such digital therapeutics in children with ADHD and no other comorbidities has not been yet examined. To address this gap, we assessed a sample of 25 children with ADHD (8–12 years old) on neural, behavioral, and clinical metrics of attention before and after a 4-week at-home intervention on an iPad targeting MFT circuitry. We found that children showed enhancements on a neural measure of attention (MFT power), as well as on objective behavioral measures of attention and parent reports of clinical ADHD symptoms. Importantly, we observed relationships between the neural and behavioral cognitive improvements, demonstrating that those children who showed the largest intervention-related neural gains were also those that improved the most on the behavioral tasks indexing attention. These findings provide support for using targeted, digital therapeutics to enhance multiple features of attentional control in children with ADHD.Study registration: ClinicalTrials.gov registry (NCT03844269) https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03844269.
Highlights
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions affecting children, with an estimated 6.1 million youth aged 2–17 years (9.4%) in the United States ever having received this diagnosis [1]
The present findings demonstrate that a targeted, digital therapeutic (AKL-T01) can have wide-ranging positive effects on several metrics of attention in a heterogenous population of children with ADHD
Our primary analyses show that AKL-T01 enhances midline frontal theta (MFT), a well-established EEG-based measure of attentional control
Summary
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions affecting children, with an estimated 6.1 million youth aged 2–17 years (9.4%) in the United States ever having received this diagnosis [1]. Akili has implemented the described data sharing policy
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