Rapp L, Mai-Lippold SA, Georgiou E, Pollatos O. Elevated EEG heartbeat-evoked potentials in adolescents with more ADHD symptoms.
Biol Psychol 2023;
184:108698. [PMID:
37775030 DOI:
10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108698]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2023] [Revised: 09/23/2023] [Accepted: 09/25/2023] [Indexed: 10/01/2023]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are associated with a variety of mental abnormalities, but little is known about the perception and processing of internal signals, i.e., interoception, in individuals with ADHD symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the association between ADHD symptoms and the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP), known as a neural correlate of automatic interoceptive processing of cardiac signals, in adolescents.
METHODS
HEPs of 47 healthy adolescent participants (53.2 % female) with a mean age of 14.29 years were measured during an emotional face recognition task. In addition, participants completed a self-report screening for ADHD symptoms.
RESULTS
ADHD symptoms were positively related to the HEP activity during the task in three of eight EEG sectors in the left hemisphere, as well as in all sectors in the right hemisphere.
DISCUSSION
This study is the first to demonstrate preliminary a relationship between the strength of HEP activity and ADHD symptoms in awake subjects. This finding of higher HEP amplitudes in subjects with more ADHD symptoms can be interpreted in terms of (i) increased arousal, (ii) altered neural processing of internal processes in an emotion-relevant task, and (iii) a misaligned precision-weighting process of task-irrelevant stimuli according to the predictive coding framework. These different interpretations could be reflected by previous studies showing heterogeneity of psychological deficits in individuals with ADHD symptoms. However, the generalizability to patients with diagnosed ADHD is limited due to the measurement tool for ADHD symptoms and the sample characteristics.
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