CLARO (Clinical and Laboratory Applications of Research in Optometry) Research Group, Department of Optics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Spain.
CLARO (Clinical and Laboratory Applications of Research in Optometry) Research Group, Department of Optics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Spain.
Vision Res. 2021 Sep;186:52-58. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2021.05.002. Epub 2021 May 26.
The present study was aimed at assessing the impact of manipulating the attentional load using a multiple object tracking (MOT) task on the dynamics of the accommodative response in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The pupil size was recorded to assess the effectiveness of the experimental manipulation, and the role of ADHD medication was also explored. The accommodative and pupil dynamics (magnitude and variability) were monitored with an open-field autorefractometer (WAM-5500) in 41 children with ADHD (24 non-medicated and 17 medicated) and 21 non-ADHD controls, while they performed the MOT task with four different levels of complexity (i.e., tracking zero, one, two, or three targets). We found that increasing the attentional load caused a heightened accommodative response, showing a negative association between MOT complexity and accommodative lag in children with ADHD and non-ADHD controls. Complementarily, the pupil size increased as a function of task complexity, confirming a successful experimental manipulation. The stability of accommodation was insensitive to the attentional manipulation, but it differed between groups. Specifically, non-medicated children with ADHD exhibited a greater variability of accommodation in comparison to controls. Increasing the attentional load is associated with a reduction in the accommodative lag in children with ADHD and controls. Our findings show that the allocation of attention plays an important role in the dynamics of the accommodative response, which may be of relevance in the diagnosis and treatment of accommodative deficits in children with and without ADHD.
本研究旨在评估通过多重目标跟踪（MOT）任务改变注意力负荷对注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）儿童调节反应动态的影响。通过记录瞳孔大小来评估实验操作的效果，并探讨 ADHD 药物治疗的作用。使用开放式自动折射仪（WAM-5500）监测 41 名 ADHD 儿童（24 名未用药和 17 名用药）和 21 名非 ADHD 对照者的调节和瞳孔动力学（幅度和可变性），他们在进行 MOT 任务时，任务复杂度有四个不同水平（即跟踪零、一、二或三个目标）。我们发现，增加注意力负荷会引起调节反应增强，ADHD 儿童和非 ADHD 对照组的 MOT 复杂度与调节滞后之间呈负相关。此外，瞳孔大小随任务复杂度的增加而增加，证实了实验操作的成功。调节稳定性对注意力操作不敏感，但在组间存在差异。具体而言，与对照组相比，未用药的 ADHD 儿童的调节变异性更大。增加注意力负荷与 ADHD 儿童和对照组的调节滞后减少有关。我们的研究结果表明，注意力分配在调节反应动态中起着重要作用，这可能与 ADHD 和非 ADHD 儿童的调节不足的诊断和治疗有关。
