ABSTRACT

The deficit in “interference control” found in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) could be due to two distinct processes, which are not disentangled in most studies: a larger susceptibility to activating prepotent response impulses and a deficit in suppressing them. Here, we investigated the effect of 1/ADHD and 2/ methylphenidate (MPH), on these two components of interference control. We compared interference control between untreated children with ADHD, children with ADHD under MPH, and typically developing children performing a Simon task. The main findings were that 1/ children with ADHD were more susceptible to reacting impulsively and less efficient at suppressing impulsive actions, and 2/ MPH improved the selective inhibition of impulsive actions but did not modify the strength of response impulse. This work provides an example of how pharmacological interventions and selective responses to them can be used to investigate and further our understanding of cognitive processing.

摘要

在患有注意力缺陷多动障碍 (ADHD) 的儿童中发现的“干扰控制”缺陷可能是由于两个不同的过程造成的，这在大多数研究中都没有被解开：对激活优势反应冲动的更大敏感性和抑制它们的缺陷。在这里，我们研究了 1/ADHD 和 2/哌醋甲酯 (MPH) 对这两个干扰控制成分的影响。我们比较了未经治疗的 ADHD 儿童、MPH 下的 ADHD 儿童和执行西蒙任务的典型发育儿童之间的干扰控制。主要发现是1/多动症儿童更容易发生冲动反应，抑制冲动行为的效率较低，2/ MPH改善了对冲动行为的选择性抑制，但没有改变反应冲动的强度。