In other words, although the control group improved their understanding of speech-in-noise, patients with ADHD could not make use of the additional visual information from mouth movements. Michalek and colleagues 16 showed that in adults with ADHD, their understanding of speech in a noisy environment did not improve when speakers’ faces were made visible. To the best of our knowledge, only 2 studies have investigated multisensory processing in adults with ADHD. 15 Because unisensory processing is impaired, it raises the question of whether multisensory processing is also affected in adult patients with ADHD. 14 In adults with ADHD, studies of sensory processing are scarce, but deficits seem to extend into adulthood. 12 – 14 Numerous studies have shown sensory hypersensitivity in children with ADHD, marked primarily by higher distractibility from external stimuli (as a failure to inhibit irrelevant stimuli), especially in the auditory domain. 11 The main symptoms of ADHD and their neuronal underpinnings have been the subject of many investigations, but a neglected area has been multisensory integration, especially in adults.Ĭhildren with ADHD show sensory processing deficits and modulatory difficulties via abnormalities in the visual domain the auditory domain (with increasing issues over time) and with touch, taste, smell, and emotional and social responses. 10 Although ADHD has long been considered a childhood disorder, recent studies have shown that 40%–50% of people with ADHD have symptoms in adulthood. 9Īttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with inappropriate levels of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. 8 In primary sensory areas and superior colliculi, signals are automatically integrated, but top–down attention is necessary in higher-order association areas to properly integrate semantic information, for example.
The process of bottom–up and top–down attentional multisensory integration processing is modulated by adjusting the gain and stimulus saliency between sensory modalities. When a person is confronted with simple stimuli, bottom–up attentional processing enables early processing more complex stimuli are processed top–down, because incoming stimuli need to be compared with existing background knowledge via feedback loops to sensory cortices. 1 Attention depends on stimulus complexity and triggers early or late multisensory integration. That process, called multisensory integration, enables us to detect, locate and differentiate external objects more beneficially and precisely than a single stream of input. To form a unified percept, our brain combines individual streams of stimuli. Our daily-life interaction with our environment is driven by numerous inputs to our sensory systems (e.g., listening to a person speaking while seeing their lip movements and sensing certain odours, all at the same time).
0 kommentar(er)
