Summary: Researchers used a virtual reality game and functional MRI to uncover how children’s brains with ADHD respond differently during active tasks. Unlike traditional brain scans taken during rest, this immersive approach revealed distinct patterns of neural communication in ADHD, especially in deeper brain structures.
The study shows that ADHD-related brain differences become more visible during real-world-like interactions, highlighting the need for more dynamic diagnostic methods. These findings could pave the way for improved diagnostics and non-drug treatments using gamified tools and real-time brain tracking.
Key Facts:
- VR Brain Imaging: ADHD-related brain differences were only apparent during active virtual gameplay, not rest or passive video viewing.
- Inter-Regional Disruption: The study found altered communication between deep brain structures and cortical areas in children with ADHD.
- Clinical Implications: Results suggest ADHD diagnostics and research should involve real-world tasks to better capture symptoms.
Source: Aalto University
In a novel study, researchers from several European universities used Virtual Reality gaming to study brain network activity in children with clinically diagnosed ADHD.
Until now, ADHD in both children and adults has primarily been studied using brain imaging in a resting state, rather than while actively engaging in tasks where overt symptoms are expressed.
‘‘Taking pictures of the brain while memory and attention are being loaded in a virtual world gives us a deeper understanding of what’s going on,’ explains Juha Salmitaival (aka Salmi), visiting professor at Aalto University.
‘During the virtual reality game, there were clear differences in brain network activation for kids with ADHD, particularly in the deep structures of the brain and their connection to cortical areas.’
While during functional MRI (fMRI) scanning, subjects were immersed in a world of challenges mimicking those faced by people in the real world. The game was projected onto a mirror, allowing children to play whilst their brain activity was scanned.
The results were then compared with scans taken while they were doing more passive activities like watching a video or simply resting.
‘Interestingly, while at rest, there was no detectable difference between the groups, and there was little difference during video viewing,’ says Salmi, findings which also highlight the value of this novel way of collecting neuroimaging data.
‘We used to think that abnormal development is mostly a matter of background activity in specific, limited brain regions. But these findings indicate that it’s more to do with inter-regional communication between brain regions.
‘We found that alterations in brain activity in individuals with ADHD are driven by the human-environment interaction,’ says Salmi.
In practice, this means that psychological testing for ADHD in the clinic, or even just brain imaging research more generally, should take place in situations where the individual is actually doing something that would spark symptoms.
Salmi hopes the study will spark more extensive research, believing that this method could also help us find out what’s behind the sharp rise in ADHD diagnoses and in the development of non-pharmacological treatments.
Games and apps are changing our brains
It’s not lost on the researchers that gaming in a virtual environment is an excellent way to explore what’s going on in our brains in a world of screens and social media.
‘The brain is a complex system that always tries to adapt to its environment, therefore it’s likely being shaped by TikTok, Snapchat and other apps and games as well,’ says Salmi. Similarly, the virtual world contains toys that can trigger impulsivity, like musical instruments, a soft drink in the fridge or the chance to take a virtual shower.
‘If the environment is fast paced, with people jumping from one thing to another like a grasshopper, the brain tries to get better at jumping from one stimulus to another,’ he adds.
‘But if we become grasshoppers, we can no longer concentrate for two hours when there are very few stimuli. Scanning the brain while it’s active could also give us fresh insight into how our brains are changing.’
Future studies for the team include researching children’s brains using smart suits and motion sensors, as well as exploring symptoms in adults in set ups that more closely simulate daily life. He foresees that in the future, symptoms could also be quantified at home, for example using augmented reality glasses.
Salmi also points out that while fMRI is at this stage too costly to be used for mainstream diagnostic purposes, as we build more knowledge in this way, diagnosing neuropsychiatric conditions should also become more straightforward.
In addition to Aalto researchers, the study involved researchers from HUS, the University of Helsinki, the University of Oulu and the Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre in France. The virtual game, Epeli was developed by a Finnish company called Peili Vision.
About this ADHD and neurotech research news
Author: Sarah Hudson
Source: Aalto University
Contact: Sarah Hudson – Aalto University
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Real-world goal-directed behavior reveals aberrant functional brain connectivity in children with ADHD” by Juha Salmitaival et al. PLOS ONE
Abstract
Real-world goal-directed behavior reveals aberrant functional brain connectivity in children with ADHD
Functional connectomics is a popular approach to investigate the neural underpinnings of developmental disorders of which attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent.
Nonetheless, neuronal mechanisms driving the aberrant functional connectivity resulting in ADHD symptoms remain largely unclear. Whereas resting state activity reflecting intrinsic tonic background activity is only vaguely connected to behavioral effects, naturalistic neuroscience has provided means to measure phasic brain dynamics associated with overt manifestation of the symptoms.
Here we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in three experimental conditions, an active virtual reality (VR) task where the participants execute goal-directed behaviors, a passive naturalistic Video Viewing task, and a standard Resting State condition.
Thirty-nine children with ADHD and thirty-seven typically developing (TD) children participated in this preregistered study. Functional connectivity was examined with network-based statistics (NBS) and graph theoretical metrics. During the naturalistic VR task, the ADHD group showed weaker task performance and stronger functional connectivity than the TD group.
Group differences in functional connectivity were observed in widespread brain networks: particularly subcortical areas showed hyperconnectivity in ADHD. More restricted group differences in functional connectivity were observed during the Video Viewing, and there were no group differences in functional connectivity in the Resting State condition.
These observations were consistent across NBS and graph theoretical analyses, although NBS revealed more pronounced group differences. Furthermore, during the VR task and Video Viewing, functional connectivity in TD controls was associated with task performance during the measurement, while Resting State activity in TD controls was correlated with ADHD symptoms rated over six months. We conclude that overt expression of the symptoms is correlated with aberrant brain connectivity in ADHD.
Furthermore, naturalistic paradigms where clinical markers can be coupled with simultaneously occurring brain activity may further increase the interpretability of psychiatric neuroimaging findings.
