A National Directory of Drug Treatment Centers and Alcohol Treatment Centers, Therapists and Specialists. A free, simple directory providing assistance and guidance for those seeking help regarding alcohol addiction, drug addiction, dependency and many other conditions that affect the mind, body and soul.
Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

Neural Processing Differences in ADHD in Individuals With and Without Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

The adverse effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on behavioral, cognitive, and social development can lead to a range of symptoms referred to as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Attention and cognition problems seen in individuals with a history of prenatal alcohol exposure often resemble those linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). An assessment of these disorders has found that while children with FASD may meet the behavioral criteria for ADHD, their attention difficulties differ in subtle but important respects.

Results will be published in the April 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

“ADHD is clinically diagnosed primarily on the basis of observations by the parent, teacher, and clinician regarding the degree to which a child exhibits specific behavioral symptoms, such as difficulty sustaining attention to and completing tasks or play activities, failure to listen when spoken to directly, impulsivity, talking out of turn, or difficulty sitting still,” explained Joseph Jacobson, professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and the study’s corresponding author. “A large proportion of children with a history of prenatal alcohol exposure exhibits these behavioral characteristics and, therefore, may meet the criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD.”

Jacobson and his colleagues examined event-related potentials (ERPs), which reflect changes in the brain’s electrical activity in response to a particular stimulus or condition, in 102 (54 women, 48 men) 19-year-olds. All of the young adults performed a Go/No-go task, which requires the participant to attend and respond selectively to non-target stimuli (Go) and inhibit responses to a target stimulus (No-go).

Jacobson explained how the Go/No-go task was used in this study. “The participant is instructed to press a button whenever a letter appears on the screen except when the letter X appears,” he said. “The participant gets into the routine of pressing the button as the letters appear on the screen. Once the rhythm of button pressing is established, individuals with ADHD find it more difficult to inhibit or hold back their impulse to press the button when the X appears and make more errors on the task regardless of whether or not they were exposed prenatally to alcohol.”

While participants with childhood ADHD, regardless of their prenatal alcohol exposure, were less accurate at inhibiting responses, only the ADHD group without prenatal alcohol exposure showed a unique ERP brain wave pattern, which may reflect a more effortful strategy related to inhibitory control.

“This difference was seen in the P3 ERP brain wave component, which has been found in other studies to reflect the mental effort or heightened attention exerted in performing a task; thus, the more difficult or cognitively challenging the task, the larger the P3 brain wave,” said Jacobson. “The typical response, which was seen both in the young adults with prenatal alcohol exposure and in the normal controls, is a larger P3 brain wave only in the more challenging No-go condition. We found that the young adults in the idiopathic ADHD group (i.e., those without prenatal alcohol exposure) showed a larger P3 wave during both types of trials — those where they had to inhibit the button press and those where they did not have to inhibit, which suggests that they found the whole task more difficult and were unable to develop the type of automatic strategy for inhibiting responses that would be expected at this age.”

Jacobson added that this study is the first to use ERPs to compare neurophysiological function during a cognitive task with these two groups.

“The data support the notion that information processing difficulties in children with prenatal alcohol exposure who exhibit ADHD symptoms may differ from those seen in children with idiopathic ADHD, even though behaviorally both groups may exhibit inattention and hyperactivity,” he said. “The ERP data suggest that different neurophysiological processes may be responsible for the attention problems seen in these two groups, which may explain why psychostimulant medication, which is often effective in treating idiopathic ADHD, is reported to be less effective in children with ADHD behavioral symptoms who were prenatally exposed to alcohol.”

In summary, he said, this study provides improved understanding of the differences in neurophysiological processing responsible for the behavioral symptoms in these two different groups, which may in turn, provide important clues regarding new treatments that may be more effective for treating ADHD symptoms in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.

source: Science Daily

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Is Medical Advice On Prenatal Alcohol Use Really Acurate?

A medico-legal professional in the Journal of Medical Ethics states that advice given by many doctors on drinking during pregnancy is condescending and morally uncertain, including the recommendations of the Chief Medical Officer for England and the British Medical Association (BMA). Unlike heavy drinking, when consumption is reasonable and moderate, studies still do not conclude….

Continue reading

An Alcoholic’s Savior: God, Belladonna or Both?

In October 1909, Dr. Alexander Lambert boldly announced to a New York Times reporter that he had found a surefire cure for alcoholism and drug addiction. Even more astounding, he stated that the treatment required “less than five days.” The therapy consisted of an odd mixture of belladonna (deadly nightshade), along with the fluid extracts….

Continue reading

Alcoholism remains a taboo issue

He seems to have it all. A tenured university professor in the Kansai region, fluent in English and partially conversant in Chinese, he is consulted by senior local business leaders seeking advice on doing business in the United States and Europe and has served on local government committees promoting international exchanges. But the professor, who….

Continue reading

Bracelet monitors offenders' alcohol intake

Like a protective Big Brother, Northwest Kansas Community Corrections has an arsenal of gadgets it uses to monitor the behavior of the inmates it oversees. One of the most promising up-and-coming devices being used is the Scram alcohol monitoring bracelet. Worn on the ankle, the bracelet uses samples of insensible perspiration through the skin to….

Continue reading

Faith paves the way to recovery for alcoholic

Homeless, alcoholic and hopeless, Dan Oller arrived last year at the Charlotte Rescue Mission, skeptical that its addiction treatment program could help him when 11 others had not. “There’s always that doubt in your mind, once you’ve failed over and over,” said Oller, who started drinking and doing drugs when he was 12. “I was….

Continue reading

Where do calls go?

Calls to numbers on a specific treatment center listing will be routed to that treatment center. Calls to any general helpline will be answered or returned by one of the treatment providers listed, each of which is a paid advertiser: ARK Behavioral Health, Recovery Helpline, Alli Addiction Services.

By calling the helpline you agree to the terms of use. We do not receive any commission or fee that is dependent upon which treatment provider a caller chooses. There is no obligation to enter treatment.

I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE NOWI NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE NOW 888-647-0579Response time about 1 min | Response rate 100%
Who Answers?