Search

AbstractBackground.Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently suffer from sleep problems and report high levels of daytime sleepiness compared to neurotypical controls, which has detrimental effect on quality of life.Methods.We evaluated daytime sleepiness in adults with ADHD compared to neurotypical controls using an observer-rated sleepiness protocol during the Sustained Attention Response Task as well as electroencephalogram (EEG) slowing, a quantitative electroencephalographic measure collected during a short period of wakeful rest.Results.We found that adults with ADHD were significantly sleepier than neurotypical controls during the cognitive task and that this on-task sleepiness contributed to cognitive performance deficits usually attributed to symptoms of ADHD. EEG slowing predicted severity of ADHD symptoms and diagnostic status, and was also related to daytime sleepiness. Frontal EEG slowing as well as increased frontal delta were especially prominent in adults with ADHD. We have validated and adapted an objective observer-rated measure for assessing on-task sleepiness that will contribute to future sleep research in psychology and psychiatry.Conclusions.These findings indicate that the cognitive performance deficits routinely attributed to ADHD and often conceptualized as cognitive endophenotypes of ADHD are largely due to on-task sleepiness and not exclusively due to ADHD symptom severity. Daytime sleepiness plays a major role in cognitive functioning of adults with ADHD.

AbstractBackground.We investigated whether adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show pseudoneglect—preferential allocation of attention to the left visual field (LVF) and a resulting slowing of mean reaction times (MRTs) in the right visual field (RVF), characteristic of neurotypical (NT) individuals —and whether lateralization of attention is modulated by presentation speed and incentives.Method.Fast Task, a four-choice reaction-time task where stimuli were presented in LVF or RVF, was used to investigate differences in MRT and reaction time variability (RTV) in adults with ADHD (n = 43) and NT adults (n = 46) between a slow/no-incentive and fast/incentive condition. In the lateralization analyses, pseudoneglect was assessed based on MRT, which was calculated separately for the LVF and RVF for each condition and each study participant.Results.Adults with ADHD had overall slower MRT and increased RTV relative to NT. MRT and RTV improved under the fast/incentive condition. Both groups showed RVF-slowing with no between-group or between-conditions differences in RVF-slowing.Conclusion.Adults with ADHD exhibited pseudoneglect, a NT pattern of lateralization of attention, which was not attenuated by presentation speed and incentives.