title: Stop and look! Evidence for a bias towards virtual navigation response strategies in children with ADHD symptoms.
abstract: Studies in children show that the development of spatial competence emerges between seven and eight years of age. Multiple memory systems (hippocampus-dependent spatial and caudate nucleus-dependent response learning) are involved in parallel processing of information during navigation. As a hippocampus-dependent spatial strategy also relies on frontoparietal executive control and working memory networks that are impaired in ADHD, we predicted that children will be more likely to adopt a response strategy as they exhibit ADHD symptoms. We tested 285 healthy children on a virtual radial-arm maze paradigm in order to test this hypothesis. We found that children displaying at least one ADHD symptom were more likely to have a perfect performance on a probe trial, which suggests that they did not rely on environmental landmarks. Children with ADHD symptoms may primarily rely on caudate nucleus-dependent response learning strategies at the expense of hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies. Repetition and reward based learning strategies, which are hallmarks of response learning, may be most effective in children exhibiting ADHD symptoms.
authors: Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Centre de recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
authors: Philippe
authors: P
authors: Robaey
authors: Douglas Institute, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Verdun, Quebec, Canada.
authors: Sam
authors: S
authors: McKenzie
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Neurosciences and Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors: Russel
authors: R
authors: Schachar
authors: School of Psychology, Université Laval, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; Institute of Genetic, Neurobiological, and Social Foundations of Child Development, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia.
authors: Michel
authors: M
authors: Boivin
authors: Douglas Institute, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Verdun, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: veronique.bohbot@mcgill.ca.
authors: Veronique D
authors: VD
authors: Bohbot
mesh_terms: D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology*; D002421:Caudate Nucleus; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006624:Hippocampus; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011699:Putamen; D011792:Quebec; D065852:Spatial Memory; D065854:Spatial Navigation; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: ADHD; Caudate nucleus; Children; Hippocampus; Navigational strategy; Spatial memory; Twins