Lack of functional brain connectivity was associated with poor inhibition in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder using near-infrared spectroscopy

Wenjing Liao; Longfei Cao; Lingli Leng; Shaohua Wang; Xinyu He; Yusang Dong; Rongwang Yang; Guannan Bai

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1221242

Lack of functional brain connectivity was associated with poor inhibition in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder using near-infrared spectroscopy

Front Psychiatry. 2023 Jul 12:14:1221242. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1221242. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Wenjing Liao¹, Longfei Cao², Lingli Leng³, Shaohua Wang⁴, Xinyu He⁵, Yusang Dong⁵, Rongwang Yang¹, Guannan Bai⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, Hangzhou, China.
² Centre for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.
³ Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
⁴ Affiliated Mental Health Center, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (Hangzhou Seventh People's Hospital), Hangzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Child Health Care, Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract

Objectives: The present study aimed to evaluate the characteristics of functional brain connectivity in the resting state in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to assess the association between the connectivity and inhibition function using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS).

Methods: In total, 34 children aged 6-13 diagnosed with ADHD were recruited from Hangzhou Seventh People's Hospital. In comparison, 37 healthy children were recruited from a local primary school as controls matched by age and sex. We used NIRS to collect information on brain images. The Stroop test assessed inhibition function. We compared the differences in functional brain connectivity in two groups by analyzing the resting-state brain network. Pearson partial correlation analysis was applied to evaluate the correlation between functional brain connectivity and inhibition in all the children.

Results: Compared with the control group, results of NIRS images analysis showed that children with ADHD had significantly low functional brain connectivity in regions of the orbitofrontal cortex, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left pre-motor and supplementary motor cortex, inferior prefrontal gyrus, and right middle temporal gyrus (p = 0.006). Inhibition function of children with ADHD was negatively correlated with functional brain connectivity (p = 0.009), while such correlation was not found in the control group.

Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that children with ADHD had relatively low connectivity in several brain regions measured at the resting state. Our results supported the evidence that lack of functional brain connectivity was associated with impaired inhibition function in children with ADHD.

Keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; brain; children; functional connection; inhibition function; near-infrared spectroscopy.

Grants and funding

WL was supported by the Zhejiang Medical and Health Technology Project (2020361674). The funders had no role in the study design; data collection, analysis, or interpretation; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the article for publication.