In neuroscience research and clinical practice, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is a significant tool for understanding the brain and its anatomy and function. MRI has been utilized by researchers to study brain alterations and differences in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
A study was done to imaging the neural activity parallels to cognitive flexibility and uncover differences in brain activity between children with ADHD and those who did not.
Multitasking isn’t just for the office. It’s essential for human functioning, and it entails something called cognitive flexibility, or the capacity to switch between brain activities effortlessly. UNC researchers undertook a study to image neural activity related to cognitive flexibility and uncover differences in brain activity between children with ADHD and those who did not.
Their findings, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, could aid clinicians in diagnosing ADHD in children as well as monitoring the severity of the disorder and treatment success.
We observed significantly decreased neural flexibility in the ADHD group at both the whole brain and sub-network levels, particularly for the default mode network, attention-related networks, executive function-related networks, and primary networks of the brain involved in sensory, motor, and visual processing.
Weili Lin
Some persons have greater cognitive flexibility than others. In some ways, it’s just the luck of the genetic draw, but we can enhance our cognitive flexibility once we recognize we’re being rigid. Consider this: we are cognitively flexible when we can start supper, let the onions simmer, text a buddy, return to make dinner without scorching the onions, and then complete dinner while conversing with our spouse.
We’re also cognitively flexible when we swap communication patterns while chatting to a friend, then a daughter, then a coworker, or when we solve difficulties creatively, such as when you realize you don’t have enough onions to create the supper you want, and you need to come up with a different strategy. It’s part of our executive function, which includes accessing memories and exhibiting self-control. Poor executive function is a hallmark of ADHD in children and adults.
When we’re cognitively inflexible, we can’t focus on some of the tasks, we pick up the phone and scroll social media without thinking, forgetting what we’re doing while making dinner. In adults but especially in children, such cognitive inflexibility can wreak havoc with an individual’s ability to learn and accomplish tasks.
UNC scientists led by senior author Weili Lin, Ph.D., director of the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC), wanted to find out what’s happening throughout the brain when executive function, particularly cognitive flexibility, is offline. Lin and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural flexibility of 180 children diagnosed with ADHD and 180 typically developing children.
“We observed significantly decreased neural flexibility in the ADHD group at both the whole brain and sub-network levels,” said Lin, the Dixie Boney Soo Distinguished Professor of Neurological Medicine in the University of North Carolina Department of Radiology, “particularly for the default mode network, attention-related networks, executive function-related networks, and primary networks of the brain involved in sensory, motor, and visual processing.”
The researchers also discovered that children with ADHD who were given medication had much greater brain flexibility than children with ADHD who were not given medication. The brain flexibility of children on medication was not significantly different from that of conventionally developing children.
Finally, the researchers discovered that they could use fMRI to detect changes in neuronal flexibility across entire brain areas between children with ADHA and typically developing youngsters.
“And we were able to predict ADHD severity using clinical measures of symptom severity,” Lin continued. “We think our study demonstrate the potential clinical utility of neural flexibility to identify children with ADHD, as well as to monitor treatment responses and the severity of the condition in individual children.”
