Abstract

The nature of ADHD, especially in adulthood, is not well-understood. Therefore, we explored subcomponents of attention in adult ADHD.Twenty-three adults with ADHD were tested on neurocognitive and visual tracking performance both while on their regular prescription stimulant medication and while abstaining from the medication for 1 day. Pairwise comparisons to 46 two-for-one matched normal controls were made to detect medication-resistant effects of ADHD, and within-participant comparisons were made to detect medication-sensitive effects in patients.Even when on medication, patients performed more poorly than controls on a spatial working memory task, and on visual tracking and simple reaction time tasks immediately following other attention-demanding tasks. Patients' visual tracking performance degraded while off-medication in a manner consistent with reduced vigilance.There may be persistent cognitive impairments in adult ADHD despite medication. In addition, the benefit of stimulants seems reduced under cognitive fatigue.

View details for PubMedID 24970719