Event-related FMRI Evidence of Frontotemporal Involvement in Aberrant Response Inhibition and Task Switching in Attention-deficit/hyperactivity Disorder

Objective: Response inhibition deficits are characteristic of individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating the neural correlates of this dysfunction have used block designs, making it difficult to disentangle activation differences specifically related to response inhibition from activation differences related to subprocesses involved in task performance. The current study was designed to further enhance our understanding of this critical function in individuals with ADHD using event-related fMRI.

Method: Ten adolescent boys diagnosed with ADHD, combined type, and 12 typically developing controls completed a Go/NoGo task modified to control for novelty processing.

Results: The ADHD group made significantly more errors of omission and more errors of commission than the control group. Further, compared with controls, individuals with ADHD showed marked abnormalities in brain activation during response inhibition, including hypoactivation of the anterior/mid-cingulate cortex extending to the supplementary motor area and hyperactivation of the left temporal gyrus.

Conclusions: The authors suggest that underactivation in frontal regions reflects core deficits in response/task-switching abilities for the ADHD group.