2026 ECNP Congress

PS03-3154

Intact visuospatial working memory capacity in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Catherine V. Barnes-Scheufler — T. Kiran, M. Qubad, A. Waris, A. Reif, R.A. Bittner · Goethe University Frankfurt, Psychiatry- Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

2026 ECNP Congress

Introduction

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects approximately 5% of the population and often persists into adulthood resulting in lasting cognitive deficits including impaired attention and working memory (WM) [1]. It has been proposed that cognitive dysfunction is at the core of behavioral symptoms and functional impairments of ADHD. Specifically, visuospatial WM dysfunction has been proposed to underlie many ADHD symptoms and moderate deficits in visuospatial WM have been reported [2]. Importantly, WM also appears to be highly related to functional outcome due to deficits in academic performance in children with ADHD [3]. However, the amount of information stored, or the capacity of visuospatial WM (WMC) has not yet been investigated in adult ADHD to the best of our knowledge.

AIM: To investigate if there is a significant reduction of visuospatial WMC in adult ADHD.

Methods

A total of 86 individuals (n = 35 ADHD, n = 51 healthy controls (HCS), age 19-51) participated in this study. Groups were matched for sex and parental years of education. The ADHD group underwent a stimulant washout for 24 or 48 hours, depending on the stimulant medication. Other than previous episodes of depression, no comorbidities were reported in patients. A canonical visuospatial change detection task with a constant set size of 4 colored circles and 60 trials was used to investigate WMC. This task was administered with a PC and has been previously utilized to investigate group differences in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder [4]. We used Pashler’s K to quantify WMC [5]. Questionnaires collected data on possible depressive symptoms, quality of life and ADHD-symptom severity. A univariate ANCOVA was used to investigate group differences in WMC. The covariate of age was added as it was significantly higher in ADHD (mean = 32.8 years) than in HCS (mean = 26.0 years, p < .001).

Results

HCS encoded a mean of 3.51 items into WMC (mean accuracy = 92 %). ADHD encoded a mean of 3.30 items into WMC (mean accuracy = 88 %). The overall model was not statistically significant, F(2, 83) = 2.40, p = .097, ηp² = .055. There was no significant effect of age, F(1, 83) = 1.06, p = .305, ηp² = .013. Importantly, the effect of group was also not significant, F(1, 83) = 1.88, p = .174, ηp² = .022.

Conclusion

We did not observe a group difference in WMC and postulate that cognitive and attentional dysfunction in ADHD could be due to other underlying cognitive subprocesses. However, there were several limitations to this preliminary analysis. Effect sizes were small, age was significantly different between groups, and our HCS group was much larger than our patient group. Therefore, we plan to continue collecting data for a more suitable group comparison. We believe the results of this study could help improve the understanding of cognitive dysfunction in adult ADHD.

References

  1. Asherson, P., ADHD across the lifespan. Medicine, 2012. 40(11): p. 623-627.
  2. Alderson, R.M., et al., Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and working memory in adults: a meta-analytic review. Neuropsychology, 2013. 27(3): p. 287.
  3. Fried, R., et al., Does working memory impact functional outcomes in individuals with ADHD: A qualitative and comprehensive literature review. Journal of attention disorders, 2019. 23(13): p. 1592-1599.
  4. Barnes-Scheufler, C.V., et al., Transdiagnostic comparison of visual working memory capacity in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, 2021. 9(1): p. 1-12.
  5. Pashler, H., Familiarity and visual change detection. Perception & psychophysics, 1988. 44(4): p. 369-378.