Latent brain state dynamics distinguish behavioral variability, impaired decision-making, and inattention

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have prominent deficits in sustained attention that manifest as elevated intra-individual response variability and poor decision-making. Influential neurocognitive models have linked attentional fluctuations to aberrant brain dynamics, but these models have not been tested with computationally rigorous procedures. Here we use a Research Domain Criteria approach, drift-diffusion modeling of behavior, and a novel Bayesian Switching Dynamic System unsupervised learning algorithm, with ultrafast temporal resolution (490 ms) whole-brain task-fMRI data, to investigate latent brain state dynamics of salience, frontoparietal, and default mode networks and their relation to response variability, latent decision-making processes, and inattention. Our analyses revealed that occurrence of a task-optimal latent brain state predicted decreased intra-individual response variability and increased evidence accumulation related to decision-making. In contrast, occurrence and dwell time of a non-optimal latent brain state predicted inattention symptoms and furthermore, in a categorical analysis, distinguished children with ADHD from controls. Importantly, functional connectivity between salience and frontoparietal networks predicted rate of evidence accumulation to a decision threshold, whereas functional connectivity between salience and default mode networks predicted inattention. Taken together, our computational modeling reveals dissociable latent brain state features underlying response variability, impaired decision-making, and inattentional symptoms common to ADHD. Our findings provide novel insights into the neurobiology of attention deficits in children.

Source: Molecular Psychiatry

DOI: 10.1038/s41380-021-01022-3

Authors: Weidong Cai, Stacie L. Warren, Katherine Duberg, Bruce Pennington, Stephen P. Hinshaw, Vinod Menon

Institutions: Stanford Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto University, University of Denver, University of California, San Francisco, University of California, Berkeley

Language: English

Topic: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,480

Funders: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute

OpenAlex ID: W3131666639