ADHD Symptoms Manifest in Automatic and Controlled Processing

ADHD Symptoms Manifest in Automatic and Controlled Processing

Jennifer Lee, Doctoral Candidate

Beth Krone, PhD

Long Island University Post Campus

Investigating and understanding the underlying nature of attention processes in ADHD can help drive improvements in treatment. In a new study, Caprì, Santoddi, and Fabio (2020)¹ examined whether children with ADHD exhibited deficits in automatic and controlled attentional processes, compared to typically developing (TD) children. They administered the Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT^2,3) to characterize automatic and controlled attention among 60 youth: ADHD-Inattentive presentation: boys = 17, girls = 3; M = 8.50 years, SD = 4.52; ADHD-Combined presentation: boys = 16, girls = 4; M = 8.50 years, SD = 4.51; and typically developing controls: boys = 33, girls = 7; M = 8.50 years, SD = 4.53. The MSIT measures responses to task with incongruent (associated with controlled processing) and congruent (associated with automatic processing) stimulus conditions over the course of 3 hours.

On congruent trials characterizing automatic processing, despite some variability between the ADHD-I and ADHD-C group’s performance, the team found no significant differences between clinical groups and controls in accuracy of responses. The ADHD-I group responded significantly more slowly to these task prompts, indicating difficulty with processing speed. On congruent trials characterizing controlled processing, the ADHD-I group’s accuracy was lower than the TD group. Further, both ADHD groups scored significantly lower than the TD group for attentional processing overall, indicating more difficulty with attentional processes in the clinical groups.

The authors suggested that differences in performance across groups for congruent and incongruent trials indicate that automatic and controlled processing are linked entities, in support of findings from a prior study from their lab⁴. Findings such as these support the literature surrounding executive control problems among individuals with ADHD, and add to the body of evidence supporting the neuropsychological hierarchy of attentional processes.

All clinicians, and particularly clinicians-in-training, benefit from a strong understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving attention and performance in ADHD. We may not currently, as a field, have the tools to elucidate all mechanisms of ADHD. We do, however, have well-validated and reliable tools that allow us to objectively characterize certain aspects of cognitive processing that transfer to behaviors. These behaviors translate to symptom profiles, although not always neatly or uniformly for all individuals. By characterizing what we can, we find targets for intervention and begin to personalize treatments. Where bottom-up (automatic) and top-down (controlled) deficits may not precisely model performance measured within or across all ADHD presentations, future work should continue to examine the factors that differ between ADHD presentations and with co-occurring disorders, and across developmental stages. Youth who exhibit deficits in these cognitive functions may benefit from high quality assessment and clinical treatment planning targeting their needs.

References

1. Caprì, T., Santoddi, E., & Fabio, R. A. (2020). Multi-Source Interference Task paradigm to enhance automatic and controlled processes in ADHD. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 97, 103542.
2. Bush, G., & Shin, L. M. (2006). The Multi-Source Interference Task: an fMRI task that reliably activates the cingulo-frontal-parietal cognitive/attention network. Nature protocols, 1(1), 308.
3. Bush, G., Shin, L. M., Holmes, J., Rosen, B. R., & Vogt, B. A. (2003). The Multi-Source Interference Task: validation study with fMRI in individual subjects. Molecular psychiatry, 8(1), 60.
4. Fabio, R. A., & Caprì, T. (2019). Automatic and controlled attentional capture by threatening stimuli. Heliyon, 5(5), e01752.