Treatment with RehaCom computerized rehabilitation program improves response control, but not attention in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Mitra Mozaffari; Peyman Hassani-Abharian; Gita Kholghi; Salar Vaseghi; Mohammad-Reza Zarrindast; Mohammad Nasehi

doi:10.1016/j.jocn.2022.02.008

Treatment with RehaCom computerized rehabilitation program improves response control, but not attention in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

J Clin Neurosci. 2022 Apr:98:149-153. doi: 10.1016/j.jocn.2022.02.008. Epub 2022 Feb 15.

Authors

Mitra Mozaffari¹, Peyman Hassani-Abharian², Gita Kholghi³, Salar Vaseghi⁴, Mohammad-Reza Zarrindast⁵, Mohammad Nasehi⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
² Department of Rehabilitation, Brain and Cognition Clinic, Tehran, Iran.
³ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Tonekabon Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon, Iran.
⁴ Medicinal Plants Research Center, Institute of Medicinal Plants, ACECR, Karaj, Iran.
⁵ Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute for Cognitive Science Studies (ICSS), Tehran, Iran; Department of Pharmacology School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Department of Neuroendocrinology, Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁶ Cognitive and Neuroscience Research Center (CNRC), Amir-Almomenin Hospital, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: Nasehi@iricss.org.

PMID: 35180505
DOI: 10.1016/j.jocn.2022.02.008

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common psychiatric disorder in children. ADHD impairs attention, response control, emotion regulation, and other cognitive functions. On the other hand, RehaCom is a cognitive rehabilitation software that has therapeutic effects on cognitive dysfunctions in many diseases such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, and schizophrenia. The goal of the present study was to investigate the effect of treatment with RehaCom on auditory and visual response control, and auditory and visual attention in children with ADHD. Forty patients were selected. The participants were assigned to control (n = 20) and experimental (n = 20) groups, while only the participants in the experimental group were trained by RehaCom for five weeks (ten 45-min sessions, two sessions per week). At weeks 0 and 5, performance of the participants of experimental group was compared with the participants of control group. The results showed that treatment with RehaCom significantly improved auditory and visual response control in children with ADHD, with no effect on auditory and visual attention. In conclusion, RehaCom may alter brain's structural and functional properties that are related to response control. We suggest that attention deficit in ADHD may be a result of more complicated dysfunctions in the brain, that are not affected by RehaCom.

Keywords: Attention; Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Cognitive Rehabilitation; RehaCom; Response Control.

MeSH terms

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity* / etiology
Brain
Child
Cognition
Cognitive Dysfunction*
Humans
Multiple Sclerosis*