Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-kp629 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T22:36:54.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Visual memory as a potential cognitive endophenotype of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2011

C. Y. Shang  and
S. S. Gau
C. Y. Shang
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
S. S. Gau*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
*
*Address for correspondence: S. S. Gau, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 7, Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei 10002, Taiwan. (Email: gaushufe@ntu.edu.tw)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Executive functions have been proposed as endophenotypes for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, data regarding visual memory are lacking. We therefore assessed visual memory in adolescents with ADHD and their unaffected siblings compared with controls.

Method

The participants included 279 adolescents with ADHD, 108 unaffected siblings, and 173 unaffected school controls. They were assessed by using the visual memory tasks of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB): Delayed Matching to Sample (DMS), Spatial Recognition Memory (SRM), Paired Associates Learning (PAL), and Pattern Recognition Memory (PRM).

Results

Compared with the controls, probands with ADHD had a significantly lower number of correct responses, a higher probability of an error following a correct response and following an error response in the DMS, and a lower percentage of correct responses in the SRM. Their unaffected siblings occupied an intermediate position between ADHD probands and controls in the probability of an error following a correct response and following an error response in the DMS, and in the percentage of correct responses in the SRM. In general, lower IQ and current use of and duration of treatment with methylphenidate were associated with more severe visual memory deficits.

Conclusions

The present results suggest that ADHD is associated with poorer visual memory function. Visual memory assessed by the DMS and SRM tasks in the CANTAB may be a useful endophenotype for ADHD.

Keywords

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorderCambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Batteryendophenotypeunaffected siblingvisual memory

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 41 , Issue 12 , December 2011 , pp. 2603 - 2614
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alarcon, M, Plomin, R, Fulker, DW, Corley, R, DeFries, JC (1998). Multivariate path analysis of specific cognitive abilities data at 12 years of age in the Colorado Adoption Project. Behavior Genetics 28, 255–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnett, R, Maruff, P, Vance, A (2005). An investigation of visuospatial memory impairment in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), combined type. Psychological Medicine 35, 1433–1443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnett, R, Maruff, P, Vance, A (2009). Neurocognitive function in attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder with and without comorbid disruptive behaviour disorders. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 43, 722–730.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berman, T, Douglas, VI, Barr, RG (1999). Effects of methylphenidate on complex cognitive processing in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 108, 90–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Biederman, J, Petty, CR, Ball, SW, Fried, R, Doyle, AE, Cohen, D, Henderson, C, Faraone, SV (2009). Are cognitive deficits in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder related to the course of the disorder? A prospective controlled follow-up study of grown up boys with persistent and remitting course. Psychiatry Research 170, 177–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brieber, S, Neufang, S, Bruning, N, Kamp-Becker, I, Remschmidt, H, Herpertz-Dahlmann, B, Fink, GR, Konrad, K (2007). Structural brain abnormalities in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and patients with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines 48, 1251–1258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Castellanos, FX, Tannock, R (2002). Neuroscience of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the search for endophenotypes. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3, 617–628.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chang, HT, Klorman, R, Shaywitz, SE, Fletcher, JM, Marchione, KE, Holahan, JM, Stuebing, KK, Brumaghim, JT, Shaywitz, BA (1999). Paired-associate learning in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder as a function of hyperactivity-impulsivity and oppositional defiant disorder. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 27, 237–245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chelonis, JJ, Edwards, MC, Schulz, EG, Baldwin, R, Blake, DJ, Wenger, A, Paule, MG (2002). Stimulant medication improves recognition memory in children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 10, 400–407.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, J (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edn.Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.Google Scholar
De Luca, CR, Wood, SJ, Anderson, V, Buchanan, JA, Proffitt, TM, Mahony, K, Pantelis, C (2003). Normative data from the CANTAB. I: Development of executive function over the lifespan. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 25, 242–254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, AE, Biederman, J, Seidman, LJ, Weber, W, Faraone, SV (2000). Diagnostic efficiency of neuropsychological test scores for discriminating boys with and without attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68, 477–488.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, AE, Faraone, SV, Seidman, LJ, Willcutt, EG, Nigg, JT, Waldman, ID, Pennington, BF, Peart, J, Biederman, J (2005 a). Are endophenotypes based on measures of executive functions useful for molecular genetic studies of ADHD? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines 46, 774–803.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, AE, Willcutt, EG, Seidman, LJ, Biederman, J, Chouinard, VA, Silva, J, Faraone, SV (2005 b). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder endophenotypes. Biological Psychiatry 57, 1324–1335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Durston, S, Hulshoff Pol, HE, Schnack, HG, Buitelaar, JK, Steenhuis, MP, Minderaa, RB, Kahn, RS, van Engeland, H (2004). Magnetic resonance imaging of boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and their unaffected siblings. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 43, 332–340.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egerhazi, A, Berecz, R, Bartok, E, Degrell, I (2007). Automated Neuropsychological Test Battery (CANTAB) in mild cognitive impairment and in Alzheimer's disease. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 31, 746–751.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Epstein, JN, Conners, CK, Hervey, AS, Tonev, ST, Arnold, LE, Abikoff, HB, Elliott, G, Greenhill, LL, Hechtman, L, Hoagwood, K, Hinshaw, SP, Hoza, B, Jensen, PS, March, JS, Newcorn, JH, Pelham, WE, Severe, JB, Swanson, JM, Wells, K, Vitiello, B, Wigal, T; MTA Cooperative Study Group (2006). Assessing medication effects in the MTA study using neuropsychological outcomes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines 47, 446–456.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Faraone, SV, Biederman, J, Doyle, A, Murray, K, Petty, C, Adamson, JJ, Seidman, L (2006). Neuropsychological studies of late onset and subthreshold diagnoses of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Biological Psychiatry 60, 1081–1087.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gau, SS, Chiu, CD, Shang, CY, Cheng, AT, Soong, WT (2009). Executive function in adolescence among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in Taiwan. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 30, 525–534.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gau, SS, Ni, HC, Shang, CY, Soong, WT, Wu, YY, Lin, LY, Chiu, YN (2010). Psychiatric comorbidity among children and adolescents with and without persistent attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 44, 135–143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gau, SS, Shang, CY (2010). Executive functions as endophenotypes in ADHD: evidence from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Battery (CANTAB). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 51, 838–849.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karatekin, C (2004). A test of the integrity of the components of Baddeley's model of working memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45, 912–926.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kebir, O, Tabbane, K, Sengupta, S, Joober, R (2009). Candidate genes and neuropsychological phenotypes in children with ADHD: review of association studies. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 34, 88–101.Google ScholarPubMed
Kempton, S, Vance, A, Maruff, P, Luk, E, Costin, J, Pantelis, C (1999). Executive function and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: stimulant medication and better executive function performance in children. Psychological Medicine 29, 527–538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessler, RC, Adler, LA, Barkley, R, Biederman, J, Conners, CK, Faraone, SV, Greenhill, LL, Jaeger, S, Secnik, K, Spencer, T, Ustun, TB, Zaslavsky, AM (2005). Patterns and predictors of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder persistence into adulthood: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Biological Psychiatry 57, 1442–1451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, BN, Lee, JS, Shin, MS, Cho, SC, Lee, DS (2002). Regional cerebral perfusion abnormalities in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Statistical parametric mapping analysis. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 252, 219–225.Google ScholarPubMed
Lasky-Su, J, Anney, RJ, Neale, BM, Franke, B, Zhou, K, Maller, JB, Vasquez, AA, Chen, W, Asherson, P, Buitelaar, J, Banaschewski, T, Ebstein, R, Gill, M, Miranda, A, Mulas, F, Oades, RD, Roeyers, H, Rothenberger, A, Sergeant, J, Sonuga-Barke, E, Steinhausen, HC, Taylor, E, Daly, M, Laird, N, Lange, C, Faraone, SV (2008). Genome-wide association scan of the time to onset of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. American Journal of Medical Genetics, Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 147B, 1355–1358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lasky-Su, J, Biederman, J, Laird, N, Tsuang, M, Doyle, AE, Smoller, JW, Lange, C, Faraone, SV (2007). Evidence for an association of the dopamine D5 receptor gene on age at onset of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Annals of Human Genetics 71, 648–659.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lopez-Larson, M, Michael, ES, Terry, JE, Breeze, JL, Hodge, SM, Tang, L, Kennedy, DN, Moore, CM, Makris, N, Caviness, VS, Frazier, JA (2009). Subcortical differences among youths with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder compared to those with bipolar disorder with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology 19, 31–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luciana, M, Nelson, CA (1998). The functional emergence of prefrontally-guided working memory systems in four- to eight-year-old children. Neuropsychologia 36, 273–293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mahone, EM, Hagelthorn, KM, Cutting, LE, Schuerholz, LJ, Pelletier, SF, Rawlins, C, Singer, HS, Denckla, MB (2002). Effects of IQ on executive function measures in children with ADHD. Child Neuropsychology 8, 52–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moody, SL, Wise, SP, di Pellegrino, G, Zipser, D (1998). A model that accounts for activity in primate frontal cortex during a delayed matching-to-sample task. Journal of Neuroscience 18, 399–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, BW, Gimbel, K, Keller-Pliessnig, A, Sartory, G, Gastpar, M, Davids, E (2007). Neuropsychological assessment of adult patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 257, 112–119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nigg, JT (2005). Attention, task difficulty, and ADHD. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 23, 513–516.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Owen, AM, Sahakian, BJ, Semple, J, Polkey, CE, Robbins, TW (1995). Visuo-spatial short-term recognition memory and learning after temporal lobe excisions, frontal lobe excisions or amygdalo-hippocampectomy in man. Neuropsychologia 33, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pennington, BF, Ozonoff, S (1996). Executive functions and developmental psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines 37, 51–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plessen, KJ, Bansal, R, Zhu, H, Whiteman, R, Amat, J, Quackenbush, GA, Martin, L, Durkin, K, Blair, C, Royal, J, Hugdahl, K, Peterson, BS (2006). Hippocampus and amygdala morphology in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 63, 795–807.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rapport, MD, Chung, KM, Shore, G, Isaacs, P (2001). A conceptual model of child psychopathology: implications for understanding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and treatment efficacy. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 30, 48–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhodes, SM, Coghill, DR, Matthews, K (2004). Methylphenidate restores visual memory, but not working memory function in attention deficit-hyperkinetic disorder. Psychopharmacology (Berlin) 175, 319–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodes, SM, Coghill, DR, Matthews, K (2005). Neuropsychological functioning in stimulant-naive boys with hyperkinetic disorder. Psychological Medicine 35, 1109–1120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhodes, SM, Coghill, DR, Matthews, K (2006). Acute neuropsychological effects of methylphenidate in stimulant drug-naive boys with ADHD II – broader executive and non-executive domains. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines 47, 1184–1194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robbins, TW, James, M, Owen, AM, Sahakian, BJ, McInnes, L, Rabbitt, P (1994). Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB): a factor analytic study of a large sample of normal elderly volunteers. Dementia 5, 266–281.Google ScholarPubMed
Rommelse, NN, Altink, ME, Oosterlaan, J, Buschgens, CJ, Buitelaar, J, Sergeant, JA (2008). Support for an independent familial segregation of executive and intelligence endophenotypes in ADHD families. Psychological Medicine 38, 1595–1606.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sahakian, BJ, Morris, RG, Evenden, JL, Heald, A, Levy, R, Philpot, M, Robbins, TW (1988). A comparative study of visuospatial memory and learning in Alzheimer-type dementia and Parkinson's disease. Brain 111, 695–718.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slaats-Willemse, DI, Swaab-Barneveld, HJ, de Sonneville, LM, Buitelaar, JK (2007). Family-genetic study of executive functioning in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: evidence for an endophenotype? Neuropsychology 21, 751–760.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wells, AM, Janes, AC, Liu, X, Deschepper, CF, Kaufman, MJ, Kantak, KM (2010). Medial temporal lobe functioning and structure in the spontaneously hypertensive rat: comparison with Wistar-Kyoto normotensive and Wistar-Kyoto hypertensive strains. Hippocampus 20, 787–797.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolosin, SM, Richardson, ME, Hennessey, JG, Denckla, MB, Mostofsky, SH (2009). Abnormal cerebral cortex structure in children with ADHD. Human Brain Mapping 30, 175–184.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Shang Supplementary Table 1

Shang Supplementary Table 1

Download Shang Supplementary Table 1(File)
File 63.5 KB
Supplementary material: File

Shang Supplementary Table 2

Shang Supplementary Table 2

Download Shang Supplementary Table 2(File)
File 46.6 KB
Supplementary material: File

Shang Supplementary Table 3

Shang Supplementary Table 3

Download Shang Supplementary Table 3(File)
File 34.3 KB