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Neurobehavioral phenotypes of delay discounting and cognitive control in child attention-deficit/hyperactivity

Gita Thapaliya1, Susan Carnell1, Stewart H Mostofsky1,2,3

  • 1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Pediatric Obesity
|January 19, 2023
PubMed

Insights

Children with ADHD and overweight/obesity share a heightened preference for immediate rewards. However, poor cognitive control (CC) appears specific to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Child Psychology
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obesity are linked to impaired cognitive control (CC) and a preference for immediate rewards.
  • Understanding shared and distinct neurobehavioral factors is crucial for both conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify shared and distinct neurobehavioral phenotypes in children with ADHD and obesity.
  • To simultaneously assess cognitive control and reward preference in children with and without ADHD, considering body weight variations.

Main Methods:

  • A case-control study involving 323 children aged 8-12 years (215 with ADHD, 108 typically developing controls).
  • Assessment of cognitive control using a go/no-go task.
  • Evaluation of reward preference via money and game time delay discounting (DD) tasks.

Main Results:

  • An interaction between body mass index z-score (BMIz) and ADHD was observed for game time DD.
  • Overweight/obese typically developing children showed heightened game time DD, similar to children with ADHD.
  • Poorer cognitive control was observed only in children with ADHD, irrespective of body weight.

Conclusions:

  • Heightened preference for immediate rewards (game time DD) may be a shared neurobehavioral phenotype between childhood ADHD and overweight/obesity.
  • Deficient cognitive control appears to be a distinct phenotype specific to children with ADHD.
Abstract

Keywords:
BMIchildhood obesitycognitive function

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