Lack of an association between anticipatory alpha oscillations and attentional selection in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Abstract

ObjectiveAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by attention problems. The current study investigated whether and how anticipatory alpha oscillations, the subsequent target-elicited N2 posterior-contralateral component (N2pc) and their relationship contributed to attention problems in children with ADHD. MethodsElectroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from 8−13-year-old children with ADHD and typically developing children during a cued visuospatial covert attention task. ResultsChildren with ADHD could not sustain hemispheric alpha lateralization during the late stage of the cued period. Similar to the pattern of adults, high-accuracy typically developing children showed a strong positive correlation between the degree of cue-induced anticipatory alpha lateralization and the subsequent target-evoked N2pc amplitude, the latter of which further predicted behavioral performance. However, only the aberrant “cue alpha-target N2pc” temporal relationship was related to symptom severity and behavioral performance in children with ADHD. ConclusionsWe showed that the temporal association of “cue alpha-target N2pc” was already present in some typically developing children. However, children with ADHD might need more time to develop this temporal association. SignificanceOur results provide neurophysiological evidence that the developmental origin of covert spatial attention is related to the temporal association between low-frequency brain oscillations and event-related potentials (ERPs).