Nejati Vahid, Mirikaram Fateme, Nitsche Michael A
Department of Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Dec 30;14(1):31807. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-82974-8.
Individuals with ADHD struggle with time perception. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) are two distinct cortical areas that are involved in the psychopathology of ADHD, including time perception. In the present study, we aimed to explore if modulation of the excitability of these areas with non-invasive brain stimulation alters time perception in ADHD. Twenty-six children with ADHD performed time discrimination and time estimation/reproduction tasks in five sessions with one week interval and specific tDCS conditions. The tDCS conditions were anodal left dlPFC/cathodal right vmPFC, the reversed electrode positioning, isolated anodal left dlPFC, right vmPFC stimulation with extracranial return electrodes, and sham stimulation. An improved time discrimination was observed in all real stimulation conditions compared to sham stimulation, however the results did not differ between real stimulation conditions. For the time reproduction/estimation task, anodal vmPFC/cathodal dlPFC, isolated anodal dlPFC stimulation and isolated anodal vmPFC stimulation with extracranial return electrodes improved time reproduction, but not estimation, compared to sham stimulation. These results imply that the left dlPFC and right vmPFC are involved in time estimation, whereas the right vmPFC might be more critical for time reproduction. This finding is discussed in light of task and stimulus properties.
患有注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）的个体在时间感知方面存在困难。腹内侧前额叶皮质（vmPFC）和背外侧前额叶皮质（dlPFC）是两个不同的皮质区域，它们参与了ADHD的精神病理学过程，包括时间感知。在本研究中，我们旨在探讨通过非侵入性脑刺激调节这些区域的兴奋性是否会改变ADHD患者的时间感知。26名患有ADHD的儿童在五个疗程中进行了时间辨别和时间估计/再现任务，疗程间隔为一周，并采用特定的经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）条件。tDCS条件包括阳极置于左侧dlPFC/阴极置于右侧vmPFC、电极位置颠倒、单独阳极刺激左侧dlPFC、使用颅外返回电极刺激右侧vmPFC以及假刺激。与假刺激相比，在所有真实刺激条件下均观察到时间辨别能力有所改善，然而真实刺激条件之间的结果并无差异。对于时间再现/估计任务，与假刺激相比，阳极刺激vmPFC/阴极刺激dlPFC、单独阳极刺激dlPFC以及使用颅外返回电极单独阳极刺激vmPFC可改善时间再现，但不能改善时间估计。这些结果表明，左侧dlPFC和右侧vmPFC参与时间估计，而右侧vmPFC可能对时间再现更为关键。根据任务和刺激特性对这一发现进行了讨论。
