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Event Related Potentials ERPs and other EEG Based Methods for Extracting Biomarkers of Brain Dysfunction: Examples from Pediatric Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD
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Event Related Potentials ERPs and other EEG Based Methods for Extracting Biomarkers of Brain Dysfunction: Examples from Pediatric Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD

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New Electrographic Marker? Evaluation of Sleep Spindles in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Pınar Özbudak1, Ahmet Özaslan2, Esra Ülgen Temel1

  • 1Department of Child Neurology, Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.

Clinical EEG and Neuroscience
|October 19, 2022
PubMed

Insights

Children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) exhibit distinct sleep patterns. Slow sleep spindles in ADHD patients show increased amplitude, activity, density, and duration, suggesting a potential new electrographic marker for diagnosis.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Pediatric Neurology
  • Sleep Medicine

Background:

  • Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent childhood developmental disorder with lifelong implications.
  • Disorganized sleep structure and altered sleep spindle characteristics are observed in individuals with ADHD.
  • Existing diagnostic methods for ADHD may benefit from novel, accessible electrographic markers.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate slow and fast sleep spindles as potential electrographic markers for ADHD diagnosis.
  • To compare sleep spindle features in children with ADHD and healthy controls.
  • To explore the utility of electroencephalography (EEG) in identifying simple, inexpensive ADHD diagnostic markers.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized polysomnography (PSG) and EEG to examine 35 treatment-free children with ADHD and 32 healthy children (HC).
  • Analyzed sleep staging and quantified sleep spindle parameters (amplitude, frequency, activity, duration, density) during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep stage 2.
  • Subdivided the ADHD group based on predominant symptom presentation.

Main Results:

  • Significantly higher amplitude, duration, density, and activity of slow sleep spindles were observed in the ADHD group compared to the HC group (p < 0.05).
  • The most pronounced differences in slow sleep spindle characteristics were noted in the ADHD-Inattentive (ADHD-I) subtype.
  • No statistically significant differences in sleep spindle features were found among the ADHD subgroups.

Conclusions:

  • Children with ADHD exhibit enhanced slow sleep spindle amplitude, activity, density, and duration, particularly in frontal regions.
  • These altered slow frontal sleep spindles may correlate with executive dysfunction in ADHD.
  • Slow frontal sleep spindles represent a promising new electrographic marker for ADHD diagnosis in children.

Keywords:
ADHDEEGchildhoodpolysomnographysleepspindle

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