Microstate dynamics and spectral components as markers of persistent and remittent attention-deficit/hyperactivity...

We leveraged microstate characteristics and power features to examine temporal and spectral deviations underlying persistent and remittent attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

50 young adults with childhood ADHD (28 persisters, 22 remitters) and 28 demographically similar healthy controls (HC) were compared on microstates features and frequency principal components (f-PCs) of eye-closed resting state. Support vector machine model with sequential forward selection (SVM-SFS) was utilized to discriminate three groups.

Four microstates and four comparable f-PCs were identified. Compared to HC, ADHD persisters showed prolonged duration in microstate C, elevated power of the delta component (D), and compromised amplitude of the two alpha components (A1 and A2). Remitters showed increased duration and coverage of microstate C, together with decreased activity of D, relatively intact amplitude of A1, and amplitude reduction in A2. The SVM-SFS algorithm achieved an accuracy of 93.59% in classifying persisters, remitters and controls. The most discriminative features selected were those exhibiting group differences.

We found widespread anomalies in ADHD persisters in brain dynamics and intrinsic EEG components. Meanwhile, the neural features in remitters exhibited multiple patterns.

This study underlines the use of microstate dynamics and spectral components as potential markers of persistent and remittent ADHD.