Brain connectome differences between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and neurotypical children during...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Computational Neuroscience
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with distinct visual attention task performance compared to neurotypical individuals.
• Brain connectome differences during visual attention tasks between ADHD and neurotypical groups were investigated using multichannel EEG and graph theory.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare brain connectome differences during visual attention between ADHD and neurotypical individuals.
• To identify discriminative features of brain connectivity for ADHD using graph theory applied to EEG data.

Main Methods:

• Constructed a minimum spanning tree (MST) graph based on EEG data similarities for both ADHD and neurotypical groups.
• Extracted MST graph features across different EEG frequency sub-bands.
• Assessed the discriminative capability of MST features using a classification approach.

Main Results:

• MST graph features achieved perfect discrimination (100% accuracy, AUC=1) between ADHD and neurotypical individuals.
• The alpha frequency band yielded the most discriminative MST features.
• ADHD group exhibited reduced leaf number, mean eccentricity, radius, and diameter in the high alpha band, alongside fewer frontal processing hubs and weaker frontoparietal connections.

Conclusions:

• MST graph features are highly effective for discriminating between ADHD and neurotypical individuals.
• These findings suggest MST graph features are promising for investigating the underlying neural mechanisms of ADHD.