Effects of methylphenidate treatment in children with ADHD: a multimodal EEG/fNIRS approach

OBJECTIVE: In this study we investigated the stimulant methylphenidate (MPH) effects in Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from neuroimaging and neurophysiological perspective by simultaneous recording functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) during attention task.

METHODS: Using fNIRS we obtained frontal cortex hemodynamic responses and using event related potentials (ERP) we obtained amplitude values of P3 component of 18 children with ADHD and gender matched 18 healthy controls performing an oddball task. Same recordings were repeated 3 months after extended-release MPH (OROS-MPH) administration for ADHD group. Prefrontal cortex oxygenation and P3 amplitude were compared between control and pre-MPH ADHD groups and between Pre-MPH and post-MPH ADHD groups.

RESULTS: fNIRS indicated that the healthy controls exhibited higher right prefrontal activation than pre-MPH children with ADHD. Reduced P3 amplitude values were found in children with ADHD compared the control group. Reduced right prefrontal activation and P3 amplitude was normalized in ADHD group after MPH therapy.

CONCLUSION: Recently multimodal neuroimaging which combine signals from different brain modalities have started to be considered as a potential to improve the accuracy of diagnosis. The current study provides MPH effect assessment in children with ADHD using multimodal EEG/fNIRS system for the first time. This study suggests combination of neuroimaging and electrophysiological parameters is a promising approach to investigate MPH effect assessment in children with ADHD.