Visual processing of biological motion in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: an event related potential-study

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 10;9(2):e88585. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088585. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often accompanied by problems in social behaviour, which are sometimes similar to some symptoms of autism-spectrum disorders (ASD). However, neuronal mechanisms of ASD-like deficits in ADHD have rarely been studied. The processing of biological motion-recently discussed as a marker of social cognition-was found to be disrupted in ASD in several studies. Thus in the present study we tested if biological motion processing is disrupted in ADHD. We used 64-channel EEG and spatio-temporal source analysis to assess event-related potentials associated with human motion processing in 21 children and adolescents with ADHD and 21 matched typically developing controls. On the behavioural level, all subjects were able to differentiate between human and scrambled motion. But in response to both scrambled and biological motion, the N200 amplitude was decreased in subjects with ADHD. After a spatio-temporal dipole analysis, a human motion specific activation was observable in occipital-temporal regions with a reduced and more diffuse activation in ADHD subjects. These results point towards neuronal determined alterations in the processing of biological motion in ADHD.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / physiopathology*
  • Behavior
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Child
  • Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / physiopathology
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Motion*
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Visual Perception / physiology*

Grants and funding

There were no industrial funders. This work was supported by the foundation of Marie Christine Held and Erika Hecker to AK, the German Research foundation “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” to CMF (FR2069/2-1), and by the LOEWE-Program “Neuronal Coordination Research Focus Frankfurt” (NeFF) to CMF and SB. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.