Reduced Prefrontal Cortex Activation in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder during Go/No-Go Task: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Shuo Miao; Junxia Han; Yue Gu; Xin Wang; Wenhong Song; Dongqing Li; Zhao Liu; Jian Yang; Xiaoli Li

doi:10.3389/fnins.2017.00367

Reduced Prefrontal Cortex Activation in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder during Go/No-Go Task: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Front Neurosci. 2017 Jun 28:11:367. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00367. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Shuo Miao¹, Junxia Han^{2

3}, Yue Gu⁴, Xin Wang¹, Wenhong Song⁵, Dongqing Li¹, Zhao Liu¹, Jian Yang¹, Xiaoli Li^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Children's Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of PediatricsBeijing, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
³ IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
⁴ Institute of Electrical Engineering, Yanshan UniversityQinhuangdao, China.
⁵ Department of Health Care, Children's Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of PediatricsBeijing, China.

Abstract

Objective: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neuropsychiatric disorders in children and affects 3 to 5% of school-aged children. This study is to demonstrate whether functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can detect the changes in the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-HB) in children with ADHD and typically developing children (TD children). Method: In this study, 14 children with ADHD and 15 TD children were studied. Metabolic signals of functional blood oxygen were recorded by using fNIRS during go/no-go task. A statistic method is used to compare the fNIRS between the ADHD children and controls. Results: A significant oxy-HB increase in the left frontopolar cortex (FPC) in control subjects but not in children with ADHD during inhibitory tasks. Moreover, ADHD children showed reduced activation in left FPC relative to TD children. Conclusion: Functional brain imaging using fNIRS showed reduced activation in the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) of children with ADHD during the inhibition task. The fNIRS could be a promising tool for differentiating children with ADHD and TD children.

Keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); children; functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS); prefrontal cortex (PFC); response inhibition.