title: Enhanced emotional interference on working memory performance in adults with ADHD.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Subjects with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suffer from both executive dysfunction and deficits in emotion regulation. However, up to now, there has been no research demonstrating a clear impact of emotional dysregulation on cognitive performance in subjects with ADHD.
  
  
  METHODS
  Male and female adults with ADHD (n=39) and gender- and IQ-matched control subjects (n=40) performed an emotional working memory task (n-back task). In the background of the task, we presented neutral and negative stimuli varied in emotional saliency (negative pictures with low saliency, negative pictures with high saliency), but subjects were instructed to ignore these pictures and to process the working memory task as quickly and as accurately as possible.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to control subjects, ADHD patients showed both a general working memory deficit and enhanced distractability by emotionally salient stimuli in terms of lower n-back performance accuracy. In particular, while controls showed impaired WM performance when presented with highly arousing negative background pictures, a comparable decrement was observed in the ADHD group already with lowly arousing pictures.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that difficulties in suppressing attention towards emotionally laden stimuli might result from deficient executive control in ADHD.
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Rostock, Germany. ivo.marx@med.uni-rostock.de
authors: Ivo
authors: I
authors: Marx
authors: Gregor
authors: G
authors: Domes
authors: Carolin
authors: C
authors: Havenstein
authors: Christoph
authors: C
authors: Berger
authors: Lars
authors: L
authors: Schulze
authors: Sabine C
authors: SC
authors: Herpertz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult