ADHD: BRAINS NOT RECOGNIZING ANGRY EXPRESSIONS
Inattention,
hyperactivity, and impulsive behavior in children with ADHD can result in
social problems and they tend to be excluded from peer activities. They have
been found to have impaired recognition of emotional expression from other faces
The research group of
Professor Ryusuke Kakigi of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences,
National Institutes of Natural Sciences, in collaboration with Professor Masami
K. Yamaguchi and Assistant Professor Hiroko Ichikawa of Chuo University first
identified the characteristics of facial expression recognition of children
with ADHD by measuring hemodynamic response in the brain and showed the
possibility that the neural basis for the recognition of facial expression is
different from that of typically developing children.
The findings are
discussed in Neuropsychologia.
The research group
showed images of a happy expression or an angry expression to 13 children with
ADHD and 13 typically developing children and identified the location of the
brain activated at that time. They used non-invasive near-infrared spectroscopy
to measure brain activity. Near-infrared light, which is likely to go through
the body, was projected through the skull and the absorbed or scattered light
was measured. The strength of the light depends on the concentration in
"oxyhemoglobin" which gives the oxygen to the nerve cells working
actively. The result was that typically developing children showed significant
hemodynamic response to both the happy expression and angry expression in the
right hemisphere of the brain.
On the other hand,
children with ADHD showed significant hemodynamic response only to the happy
expression but brain activity specific for the angry expression was not
observed. This difference in the neural basis for the recognition of facial
expression might be responsible for impairment in social recognition and the
establishment of peer-relationships.
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