Exploring The Neural Correlates of Reading Comprehension and Social Cognition Deficits in College Students with ADHD

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Symptoms of this disorder have been shown to adversely impact academic and social functioning of those with ADHD. College students with ADHD, compared to their non-ADHD peers, are at increased risk for academic and social difficulties. Given the reading-intensive and socially-driven environment of the college campus, empirical literature examining the reading comprehension and social cognition of college students are wanting. The current investigation utilized the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) and Faux Pas Recognition test (FPRT) to assess reading comprehension and social cognition, respectively, in college students with (n = 3) and without ADHD (n = 9). The Short Story Task (SST) was administered during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural correlates of narrative comprehension and theory of mind (ToM) while reading short fictional stories of varying prose complexity. The ADHD and control groups did not differ in IQ, GPA, or scores of NDRT, FPRT, or SST, suggesting that they had comparable academic performance, narrative comprehension, and social cognition. The fMRI analysis of SST showed that the ADHD group demonstrated increased activation in the left anterior cingulate (ACC) and parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) while reading the complex story compared to the simple story. This differential activation was not observed in the CTRL group, suggesting that the ADHD group required more neural resources to process the emotional components of the complex story to achieve the comparable performance on the SST. The ADHD group additionally exhibited lower activation in the narrative comprehension and ToM networks (medial prefrontal cortex, Broca’s area, angular gyri). Collectively, these results indicate that while ADHD and CTRL groups did not differ behaviorally, they exhibit differential neural activation patterns in tasks related to narrative comprehension and social cognition. Further investigations may inform the development of educational and psychosocial interventions to improve academic and social functioning in young adults with ADHD

Cognitive Flexibility and Academic Performance in College Students with ADHD: An fMRI Study

Cognitive flexibility, or the ability to change behavior or cognitive action appropriately in response to context shifts, is crucial to college-level learning, as it is needed for solving problems that require a transfer of familiar knowledge to novel concepts. Cognitive flexibility is known to involve neural areas concentrated in the frontal lobes, such as the inferior and superior frontal gyri and the anterior cingulate cortex, but the activation of this network is typically weaker in the ADHD population. In academic settings, individuals with ADHD tend to perform below healthy peers, have lower GPAs, are more likely to be on academic probation, and have decreased motivation. While most of these downfalls are attributed to attentional deficits, no investigations have been done to assess any effects of cognitive flexibility on academic performance. Therefore, this study used the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) in the fMRI to assess cognitive flexibility in college students with and without ADHD and compared task performance to academic performance to determine if there is any relationship. We found that the ADHD group presented more perseverative errors on the WCST, and this performance was negatively correlated to GPA, suggesting that cognitive flexibility deficits impair academic performance. We also observed decreased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex and inferior and superior frontal gyri in subjects with ADHD as compared to controls, suggesting a possible neural network involved in these behavioral deficits