Performance Monitoring in Children Following Traumatic Brain Injury Compared to Typically Developing Children

Amy A Wilkinson; Maureen Dennis; Margot J Taylor; Anne-Marie Guerguerian; Kathy Boutis; Karen Choong; Craig Campbell; Douglas Fraser; Jamie Hutchison; Russell Schachar; Canadian Critical Care Trials Group (CCCTG)

doi:10.1177/2329048X17732713

Performance Monitoring in Children Following Traumatic Brain Injury Compared to Typically Developing Children

Child Neurol Open. 2017 Oct 12:4:2329048X17732713. doi: 10.1177/2329048X17732713. eCollection 2017 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Amy A Wilkinson^{1

2}, Maureen Dennis³, Margot J Taylor^{1

2

4}, Anne-Marie Guerguerian^{2

5}, Kathy Boutis⁶, Karen Choong⁷, Craig Campbell⁸, Douglas Fraser⁸, Jamie Hutchison^{2

5}, Russell Schachar^{2

9}; Canadian Critical Care Trials Group (CCCTG)

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
² Program in Neuroscience & Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
³ Dr Maureen Dennis passed away during the completion of this study.
⁴ Department of Diagnostic Imaging, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵ Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁶ Division of Emergency Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁷ Division of Pediatric Intensive Care, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
⁸ Department of Pediatrics, Clinical Neurological Sciences and Epidemiology, Schulich School of Medicine, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
⁹ Department of Psychiatry, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

Children with traumatic brain injury are reported to have deficits in performance monitoring, but the mechanisms underlying these deficits are not well understood. Four performance monitoring hypotheses were explored by comparing how 28 children with traumatic brain injury and 28 typically developing controls (matched by age and sex) performed on the stop-signal task. Control children slowed significantly more following incorrect than correct stop-signal trials, fitting the error monitoring hypothesis. In contrast, the traumatic brain injury group showed no performance monitoring difference with trial types, but significant group differences did not emerge, suggesting that children with traumatic brain injury may not perform the same way as controls.

Keywords: pediatrics; performance monitoring; stop-signal task; traumatic brain injury.