Long-term neurocognitive outcomes after pediatric intensive care: exploring the role of drug exposure.

Background: Concerns exist regarding the impact of widely used clinical drugs on brain development. This study investigates long-term neurocognitive functioning in relation to frequently used drug exposure at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

Methods: This study compared children aged 6-12 years with previous PICU admission (age ≤1 year) for bronchiolitis requiring mechanical ventilation (patient group, n = 65) to a demographically comparable control group (n = 76) on a broad range of neurocognitive outcomes.

Internalizing problems before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in independent samples of Dutch children and adolescents with and without pre-existing mental health problems.

The aim of the study was to assess internalizing problems before and during the pandemic with data from Dutch consortium Child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, consisting of two Dutch general population samples (GS) and two clinical samples (CS) referred to youth/psychiatric care. Measures of internalizing problems were obtained from ongoing data collections pre-pandemic (N = 35,357; N = 4487) and twice during the pandemic, in Apr-May 2020 (N = 3938; clinical: N = 1008) and in Nov-Dec 2020 (N = 1489; N = 1536), in children and adolescents (8-18 years) with parent (Brief Problem Monitor) and/or child reports (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System). Results show that, in the general population, internalizing problems were higher during the first peak of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic based on both child and parent reports.

Mental and Social Health of Children and Adolescents With Pre-existing Mental or Somatic Problems During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown.

The COVID-19 lockdown increases psychological problems in children and adolescents from the general population. Here we investigate the mental and social health during the COVID-19 lockdown in children and adolescents with pre-existing mental or somatic problems. We included participants (8-18 years) from a psychiatric ( = 249) and pediatric ( = 90) sample, and compared them to a general population sample ( = 844).

Effects of physical activity interventions on cognitive outcomes and academic performance in adolescents and young adults: A meta-analysis.

The aim was to provide a meta-analysis of studies investigating the effects of physical activity interventions on cognitive outcomes and academic performance in adolescents or young adults. A systematic review with meta-analysis was performed using the following databases: Embase, ERIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science. Studies had to meet the following criteria: controlled study design, investigating the effects of physical activity interventions on cognitive outcomes and academic performance in healthy adolescents or young adults (12-30 years).

Stimulant Treatment Trajectories Are Associated With Neural Reward Processing in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Objective: The past decades have seen a surge in stimulant prescriptions for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Stimulants acutely alleviate symptoms and cognitive deficits associated with ADHD by modulating striatal dopamine neurotransmission and induce therapeutic changes in brain activation patterns. Long-term functional changes after treatment are unknown, as long-term studies are scarce and have focused on brain structure.

Anxiety modulates the relation between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder severity and working memory-related brain activity.

Objectives: Individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often have heightened levels of anxiety, which has been associated with worse performance on working memory tasks. Knowledge of the neural pathways underlying the combined presence of ADHD and anxiety may aid in a better understanding of their co-occurrence. Therefore, we investigated how anxiety modulates the effect of ADHD severity on neural activity during a visuospatial working memory (VSWM) task.

Female-specific association of NOS1 genotype with white matter microstructure in ADHD patients and controls.

Background: The nitric oxide synthase gene (NOS1) exon 1f (ex1f) VNTR is a known genetic risk factor for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), particularly in females. NOS1 plays an important role in neurite outgrowth and may thus influence brain development, specifically white matter (WM) microstructure, which is known to be altered in ADHD. The current study aimed to investigate whether NOS1 is associated with WM microstructure in (female) individuals with and without ADHD.

A 6-year follow-up of a large European cohort of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-combined subtype: outcomes in late adolescence and young adulthood.

There are very few studies on the long-term outcome of children and adolescents with ADHD-combined type in Europe. The objective of the present study is to assess the 6-year outcome (including pharmacological treatment) of a large cohort of participants with ADHD-combined type (N = 347, mean age 11.4 years) in late adolescence and early adulthood.

The influence of comorbid oppositional defiant disorder on white matter microstructure in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) are highly comorbid disorders. ADHD has been associated with altered white matter (WM) microstructure, though the literature is inconsistent, which may be due to differences in the in- or exclusion of participants with comorbid ODD. WM abnormalities in ODD are still poorly understood, and it is unclear whether comorbid ODD in ADHD may have confounded the current ADHD literature.

Neural correlates of visuospatial working memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and healthy controls.

Impaired visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is suggested to be a core neurocognitive deficit in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), yet the underlying neural activation patterns are poorly understood. Furthermore, it is unclear to what extent age and gender effects may play a role in VSWM-related brain abnormalities in ADHD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected from 109 individuals with ADHD (60% male) and 103 controls (53% male), aged 8-25 years, during a spatial span working memory task.

Smoking and the developing brain: altered white matter microstructure in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and healthy controls.

Brain white matter (WM) tracts, playing a vital role in the communication between brain regions, undergo important maturational changes during adolescence and young adulthood, a critical period for the development of nicotine dependence. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with increased smoking and widespread WM abnormalities, suggesting that the developing ADHD brain might be especially vulnerable to effects of smoking. This study aims to investigate the effect of smoking on (WM) microstructure in adolescents and young adults with and without ADHD.

The NeuroIMAGE study: a prospective phenotypic, cognitive, genetic and MRI study in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Design and descriptives.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a persistent neuropsychiatric disorder which is associated with impairments on a variety of cognitive measures and abnormalities in structural and functional brain measures. Genetic factors are thought to play an important role in the etiology of ADHD. The NeuroIMAGE study is a follow-up of the Dutch part of the International Multicenter ADHD Genetics (IMAGE) project.

Different mechanisms of white matter abnormalities in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a diffusion tensor imaging study.

Objective: Literature regarding white matter (WM) abnormalities in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is sparse and inconsistent. In this article, we shed more light on WM microstructure in ADHD, its association with symptom count, and the familiality of WM abnormalities in ADHD.

Method: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed in a large sample of individuals with ADHD (n = 170), their unaffected siblings (n = 80), and healthy controls (n = 107), aged 8 to 30 years.

Visuospatial working memory in ADHD patients, unaffected siblings, and healthy controls.

Objective: The aim of this study was to (a) test the usefulness of visuospatial working memory (VSWM) as an endophenotype for ADHD and (b) study the developmental trajectory of VSWM in ADHD.

Method: A total of 110 ADHD patients, 60 unaffected siblings, and 109 controls, aged 8 to 29 years, were assessed on VSWM functioning. Multilevel analyses were carried out to account for the correlation between measurements within families.

Diffusion tensor imaging in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) allows in vivo examination of the microstructural integrity of white matter brain tissue. A systematic review and quantitative meta-analysis using GingerALE were undertaken to compare current DTI findings in patients with ADHD and healthy controls to further unravel the neurobiological underpinnings of the disorder. Online databases were searched for DTI studies comparing white matter integrity between ADHD patients and healthy controls.