Effects of methylphenidate in ADHD adults on target evaluation processing reflected by event-related potentials

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a widely examined disease in childhood. There is evidence that the disease responds well to medication with methylphenidate (MPH). The effect of MPH in adults with ADHD is a question that is often raised, because many adults request such therapy today. As yet, there is a lack of studies on event-related potentials (ERPs) and MPH in ADHD adults. In the present study we examined 10 adults diagnosed with ADHD, with and without MPH medication (30 mg daily), by means of ERP in a visual Go/NoGo experiment to gain information about target evaluation processing in these patients and about the effects on these attentional processes during medication with MPH. Visually, there seem to be differences in the frontal electrodes for the N2 and in the parietal electrodes for the P300. But these differences do not achieve statistical significance. There are also no statistically relevant differences for the N1 or the slow wave. MPH does not seem to have an effect on target evaluation processing, when comparing the ERPs of non-medicated and medicated ADHD adults. Especially the P3 does not appear to be modulated by medication with MPH in these ADHD adults, in contrast to findings in ADHD children.     

Effects of aging on event-related brain potentials and reaction times in an auditory oddball task

Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 71 healthy individuals between 18 and 82 years of age during performance of a disjunctive reaction time task in an auditory oddball paradigm. The effects of aging on reaction times and on the latencies, amplitudes, and distributions of each of the main ERP components were examined. No significant slowing of the reaction times of the elderly subjects was observed in relation to the younger ones. The peak latencies of both the N1 and P2 components elicited by standard tones were slightly but significantly slowed with age. In the ERPs of target tones, the later, endogenous components (N2, P3, and SW) showed linear increases in latency as a function of age; the later the component, the longer the age-related delay. In general, aging was associated with less negativity (both N2 and SW) and more positivity (P3) over the anterior scalp, together with a smaller P3 and a more pronounced N2 over posterior scalp areas. Most of the effects observed in target ERPs were also evident in the difference waves derived from subtraction of the standard from the target ERPs, although the slope of the age-related latency increase of N2 was shallower and that of the P3 was steeper in the difference ERPs. These findings are discussed in relation to previous accounts of ERP changes with aging.     

Attentional processing in adults with ADHD as reflected by event-related potentials

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a well known childhood disease and well researched via event-related potentials (ERPs), but unfortunately there is little information on this illness in adults in ERPs. In the present study, 12 adults diagnosed with ADHD and 12 healthy control adults were examined with respect to ERPs in a visual Go/NoGo-experiment to gain information about target evaluation processing in these patients. Two attention-related ERP-components, the N1 and N2 were significantly increased for the ADHD adults compared to the healthy control adults. These findings were illustrated using source analysis results: In the time frame corresponding to the N1, significant increases of activity were found in the medial frontal gyrus and during the N2 time frame significant increases were detected in the lingual gyrus. The P300 showed a tendency towards decreased activity in the patient group, however, only a subsequent slow wave activity indicated significant differences. Neuronal activity related to early attentional mechanisms (N1 and N2) appears to be enhanced in ADHD patients. Together with the finding of a reduction in the P300, the data suggest that ADHD adults have learned to gather their attention more strongly than healthy adults in order to achieve the same results and compensate for their impairment. This is supported by the source analysis results which show activity in additional brain areas.     

Association with positive outcome induces early effects in event-related brain potentials

Emotional pictures, faces, or words elicit an early posterior negativity (EPN) in the event-related potential, starting around 200-400 ms, followed by a late positive complex (LPC). Occasionally, also very early effects of emotion (VEEEs) are seen prior to 200 ms. The present study examined whether VEEEs can be due to direct links established by reinforcement learning. In the learning session, participants learned to associate previously unknown Chinese words with monetary gain, loss, or neither. In the test session, they were required to distinguish the learned stimuli from novel distracters. Specific to stimuli associated with positive outcome a VEEE, consisting of a posterior positivity, appeared around 150 ms and an LPC between 550 and 700 ms, whereas an EPN was absent. These results show that previous association with reward can induce VEEEs, indicating that emotion effects in ERPs may arise in the absence of biologically preparedness and semantic meaning.     

Error-related event-related potentials in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, reading disorder, and math disorder

We studied error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) during a discrimination task in 319 unmedicated children divided into subtypes of ADHD (Not-ADHD/inattentive/combined), learning disorder (Not-LD/reading/math/reading+math), and oppositional defiant disorder. Response-locked ERPs contained a frontocentral ERN and posterior Pe. Error-related negativity and positivity exhibited larger amplitude and later latency than corresponding waves for correct responses matched on reaction time. ADHD did not affect performance on the task. The ADHD/combined sample exceeded controls in ERN amplitude, perhaps reflecting patients' adaptive monitoring efforts. Compared with controls, subjects with reading disorder and reading+math disorder performed worse on the task and had marginally more negative correct-related negativities. In contrast, Pe/Pc was smaller in children with reading+math disorder than among subjects with reading disorder and Not-LD participants; this nonspecific finding is not attributable to error processing. The results reflect anomalies in error processing in these disorders but further research is needed to address inconsistencies in the literature.     

The effects of metabolic syndrome and apolipoprotein E4 on cognitive event-related potentials

To reduce the care burden of dementia, identifying whether the combined effect of metabolic syndrome and ?4 increases the risk of cognitive decline needs to be determined. Using the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI), 145 mentally healthy middle-aged and older adults were recruited to investigate the influence of metabolic syndrome and ?4 on cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs). The results showed no difference in CASI scores, N100 and P300 measurements and ?4 carrier percentage between participants with and without metabolic syndrome. The ?4 carriers displayed a significant decrease in P300 amplitude, although the CASI scores and N100 component showed no difference. We conclude that metabolic syndrome exerts little effect on N100 and P300 measurements, and that ?4 carrier is an independent predictor of low P300 amplitude.     

The relationship between poor sleep and inhibitory functions indicated by event-related potentials

The present study focused on the relationship between normal variations of sleep and inhibitory functions as reflected in event-related potentials. For this reason one night of 21 healthy participants was analysed. After waking up all participants completed a visual Go/Nogo task. On the basis of a sleep disturbance index (SDI) the participants were separated into 8 SDI-good and 13 SDI-poor sleepers using a cluster analysis. The results showed that Nogo-N2 amplitude was smaller and Nogo-P3 latency longer in SDI-poor sleepers. Moreover, Go-P3 amplitude was smaller in SDI-poor sleepers. Performance parameters were not influenced by poor sleep. We concluded that poor sleep specifically affects the intensity of pre-motor inhibitory processes (Nogo-N2 amplitude), the speed to inhibit a motor response (Nogo-P3 latency) and the intensity of task-relevant information processing (Go-P3 amplitude). In further studies, it should be explored under which conditions such subliminal deficits also become relevant for overt behaviour.

Brain event-related potentials to complex tones in depressed patients: Relations to perceptual asymmetry and clinical features

Brain event-related potentials (ERPs) to probe tones in a dichotic complex tone test were recorded from right-handed depressed patients (n= 44) and normal subjects (n= 19) at homologous sites over left and right hemispheres (F3, F4; C3, C4; P3, P4; O1, O2). There were no differences between groups in N1 or P2 amplitude, but patients had smaller P3 amplitude than did normal subjects. Depressed patients failed to show either the left ear advantage or behavior-related hemispheric asymmetry of P3 seen for normal subjects. Depressed patients also showed less differences in hemispheric asymmetry between same and different judgments. These findings indicate that the abnormal behavioral asymmetry for dichotic pitch discrimination in depressed patients reflects a reduction in hemispheric asymmetry and is related to relatively late stages of cognitive processing.     

Brain potentials during mental arithmetic-effects of problem difficulty on event-related brain potentials

One addend ‘+' symbol and another addend were presented in sequence to subjects in a monitor, and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded at the same time to examine the effect of problem difficulty (with or without carrying in solution) on ERPs. After the presentation of the second addend, N1, P1, N2, late positive complex and slow waves were recorded. The P2 amplitude at F3 site for the difficult arithmetic problems between 168 and 184 ms is larger (more positive) than that for easy problems (P<0.05). The mean latency of P2 at F7 and P3b at F3 and F4 is significantly longer for difficult problems than that for easy ones (P<0.05). It is suggested that prefrontal activity may be involved in the arithmetic data retrieval process. ERPs is modified to different degrees by changing the difficulty of mental arithmetic.     

Functional Differences Between Members of the P300 Complex: P3e and P3b

The main findings of this study bear upon differences in the functional roles of P3b and a shorter latency, more centrally distributed endogenous positive component denoted as P3e. At the present writing, we have observed P3e only in conjunction with P3b. As in the case of P3b, P3e is fully endogenous in that it can be- elicited by omission of a stimulus if stimulus omission conveys relevant information to the subject. It was found that P3e and P3b relate differently to information delivery. Information delivery was manipulated by varying event probabilities and the discriminability of the events. The well known properties of P3b, namely that its amplitude is large when elicited by low probability (high information content) events and is reduced by perceptual difficulty (information loss-equivocation), were replicated in the current study. In contrast to P3b, variation of event probability had no effect upon P3e amplitude, but increased perceptual difficulty markedly reduced P3e amplitude. In addition, two CNV-type negativities were observed in the epochs prior to presentation of the informative signal event: 1) A negativity that was maximal over central scalp related to the subject's prediction that a rare or frequent event would be presented; 2) A negativity that was maximal over occipital scalp related to a stimulus that informed the subject whether the subsequent discrimination of the signal would be easy or difficult. Finally, there was a serendipitous Hading of an apparently new short duration component, tentatively labeled Px, which is elicited by presentation of the signal that informs the subject whether the subsequent discrimination will be easy or difficult.     

Selection of features within and without objects: effects of gestalt appearance and object-based instruction on behavior and event-related brain potentials

We studied how physical and instructed embedding of features in gestalts affects perceptual selection. Four ovals on the horizontal midline were either unconnected or pairwise connected by circles, forming ears of left and right heads (gestalts). Relevant to responding was the position of one colored oval, either within its pair or relative to fixation ("object-based" or "fixation-based" instruction). Responses were faster under fixation- than object-based instruction, less so with gestalts. Previously reported increases of N1 when evoked by features within objects were replicated for fixation-based instruction only. There was no effect of instruction on N2pc. However P1 increased under the adequate instruction, object-based for gestalts, fixation-based for unconnected items, which presumably indicated how foci of attention were set by expecting specific stimuli under instructions that specified how to bind these stimuli to objects.     

The effect of attended color on the P1/N1 component of visual event-related potentials

Ten subjects were asked to pay attention to green or to red, when each visual stimulus was presented as two small squares, one green and the other red. They were instructed to push a button with the right hand, when the attended color was on the right side, and to push a button with the left hand, when the attended color was on the left side. The P1/N1 peak-to-peak amplitudes of visual event-related potentials were significantly higher when subjects focused attention on green rather than on red. We assume that the attended color had the effect of modulating the P1/N1 components.     

Resisting recently acted-on cues: compatibility of Go/NoGo responses to response history modulates (frontal P3) event-related potentials

Using event-related potentials to investigate compatibility between past and present cue-response interactions, an experiment combined elements of selective-attention and Go/NoGo tasks. In the selective-attention part of each trial, participants responded to one of two visible numerical digits. Immediately afterward, in the Go/NoGo part of each trial, one of the same two digits appeared, with participants required to press the corresponding key on Go trials and to withhold responding on NoGo trials. Higher-amplitude anterior P3 responses on NoGo than on Go trials emerged when participants withheld responding to a recently selected cue but were greatly diminished when participants withheld responding to a recently ignored cue. The findings suggest that episodic traces of past Go/NoGo responses guide future action decisions, such that increased response control is needed to overcome bias to respond to recently acted-on NoGo cues.     

Stimulus presentation rate dissociates sequential effects in event-related potentials and reaction times

The present study explored the impact of the stimulus presentation rate on sequential effects in event-related potentials (ERPs) and reaction times (RTs). Random series of equiprobable tones were presented at interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 1.3, 2.1, and 2.9s. Fast and accurate choice responses to the tones were required. Although sequential effects in RTs were stable across all ISIs, the common first-order repetition effect in P300 amplitude was only observed at the 1.3-s ISI and not at the slower presentation rates. This dissociation between the first-order effects in RTs and ERPs speaks against an explanation of both effects by a common expectancy mechanism. In addition, sequential effects were observed as early as about 100 ms after stimulus onset in the lateralized readiness potential. Together with similar sequential effects in P300 latency, this finding supports a continuous flow model of information processing.     

Event-related brain potentials in a varied-set memory search task: A reconsideration

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in 19 healthy subjects as they completed two Sternberg (1969, American Scientist, 57, 421–457) memory tests. In separate sessions, either single digits (i.e., 0–9) or 10 abstract figures were used as stimuli. In both sessions, memory set sizes were 1 (M1), 2 (M2), or 4 (M4). The amplitude and latency of the parietal P400 and the frontocentral negativity preceding P400 varied significantly with set size, but only between M1 and M2, whereas reaction time increased dramatically from M1 to M2 and from M2 to M4. These findings challenge previous assertions that the ERPs reflect aspects of the exhaustive serial search proposed by Sternberg. A late parietal positivity (P620), which failed to vary with set size, was larger in response to figures than to digits and may represent the search for, or utilization of, semantic traces of the stimuli.     

Probing the Time-Course of the Auditory Oddball P3 With Secondary Reaction Time

An elementary neural model of the P3 is proposed in which the P3 is held to manifest a brief, widely-distributed, inhibitory event. A preliminary and indirect test of the model is described using secondary-task methodology. Manual reaction times were measured to probe clicks delivered during the presumed time-course of an auditory oddball P3. We observed that reaction times to probes presented after oddball stimuli were significantly slowed as compared to reaction times to probes presented after standards. The latency of maximum reaction time slowing corresponded generally to the latency of the P3. The latency of maximum reaction time slowing did not respond to a manipulation varying the latency of the P3. Thus, some of the obtained results were consistent with the P3-inhibition hypothesis, whereas others were not. Secondary-task methodology may provide a valuable new approach to understanding the late event-related potentials.     

抑郁症患者的探究性眼动与听觉事件相关电位研究

目的:探讨探究性眼动(EEM)与听觉事件相关电位(ERP)的P300成分对抑郁症患者的诊断价值。方法:对42例抑郁症患者和40例正常健康者分别进行了EEM分析和听觉ERP的P300成分测定,并将结果加以比较。结果:抑郁症组中EEM和听觉ERP的:P300成分的异常率分别为83％(35／42)和81％(34／42),两者异常吻合率为76％(32／42)。抑郁症组EEM分析结果,凝视点数(NEF)和反应探索评分(RSS)值显著低于对照组(P<0．01)。与对照组比较,抑郁症组听觉ERP的N2、P3波潜伏期均延长和P3波幅降低,差异有显著意义(P<0．01)。抑郁症组N2、P3波潜伏期与NEF、RSS呈负相关(r=-0．29～-0．36,P<0．01),P3波幅与NEF、RSS呈正相关(r=0．32～0．33,P<0．01)。结论:EEM和听觉ERP的P3成分测定可作为抑郁症患者的诊断指标应用于临床。     

The time course of psychological stress as revealed by event-related potentials

Psychological stress is common in everyday life and is believed to affect emotion, cognition and health. Previous brain imaging studies have been able to identify the brain regions involved in the stress response. However, our understanding of the temporal neurological response to psychological stress is limited. The present work aims to investigate the time course of psychological stress induced by a mental arithmetic task, utilizing event-related potentials (ERPs). The elicitation of stress was verified by self-reports of stress and increases in salivary cortisol levels. The subjective and physiological data showed that the stress-elicitation paradigm successfully induced a mild-to-moderate level of psychological stress. The electrophysiological data showed that the amplitude of occipital N1 was more negative in the control task than in the stress task, and the latency of frontal P2 was shorter in the stress task than in the control task. Our results provide electrophysiological evidence that psychological stress occurs primarily at the early stage of cognitive processing.     

Stimulus complexity effects on the event-related potentials to task-irrelevant stimuli

The effects of irrelevant stimuli complexity on event-related potentials were investigated in 3 conditions using both auditory and visual oddball tasks. In Conditions 1 and 2, simple standard and target stimuli were presented in series with complex, identical (Condition 1) or variable (Condition 2), task-irrelevant stimuli. In Condition 3, complex standards and targets were presented with simple, identical, task-irrelevant stimuli. In Conditions 1 and 2, but not Condition 3, the irrelevant stimuli elicited the P3a component in both auditory and visual modalities and the N2b component in the visual modality. While we found that variable, irrelevant stimuli evoked larger P3a in the auditory modality compared with identical irrelevant stimuli, we observed the opposite effect in the visual modality. These results suggest that stimuli rareness and irrelevance are not sufficient for eliciting P3a. This component is only elicited by irrelevant stimuli that are at least as complex as the task-related stimuli.     

Meta-analytic review of event-related potential studies in post-traumatic stress disorder

In recent years there has been an accumulation of studies that have utilized the measurement of event-related potentials (ERP) to examine the neuroelectric correlates of hypothesized alterations in information processing in persons with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The objective of this meta-analysis was to summarize the findings of ERP PTSD research, including studies that have examined P50 auditory sensory gating, augmenting-reducing P200, and P300 in target detection oddball tasks. The results suggest that persons with PTSD exhibit alterations in the amplitude and latency of ERP within these paradigms that support the hypothesis that changes in information processing can accompany PTSD. The results were also consistent with recent cognitive neuropsychological findings in PTSD research.