Children are diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders every day, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Fragile X syndrome (FXS) and ADHD. One of the ways scientists have found to measure these children's neural responses is event-related potentials (ERPs). There are multiple ERPs that are talked about within the two studies done, reporting potential effects of working memory, conflict monitoring, and face processing.
In a recent neuroscience seminar, Dr. Maggie Guy came and talked about what ERPs are and how they can be used to see how the brain works in different stages of processing. Dr. guy measured ERPs using voltage oscillations using an EEG to measure the brief stimulus presentation. The study used children with ASD, FXS and siblings of kids with autism to study the responses to faces between the 3 groups. The two ERPs measured were N290 and Nc, where N290 had a peak about 290-350 milliseconds after onset while Nc had a peak around 350-750 milliseconds after the stimulus onset (Guy et al., 2021).
Guy was able to show that N290 may have reflected some automatic face recognition, and that the engagement with the task was increased in infants with FXS rather than the siblings of kids with autism. However, a question I have is what is the difference between FXS and autism compared to a different disorder like ADHD? A study done by scientists in the Xinjiang region in China focuses more on ERPS in children diagnosed with ADHD.
These scientists define ADHD as a common developmental disorder with a core symptom of response inhibition (Gao et al., 2026). Gao and others tested the P300 component and N200 component, testing index of working memory and conflict monitoring respectively. There were 2 separate experiments done and revealed some pretty interesting results. Experiment 1 showed that the combined paradigm of N-back and Nogo indicated both working memory and response inhibition as cognitive processes that are separate but also engaged simultaneously. Experiment 2 showed that children with ADHD responded less accurately compared to typical children, supporting the hypothesis of core executive dysfunction. It was shown that Nogo-N200 components were prolonged with children with ADHD, and the amplitudes of the N-backP300 components were lower in the ADHD than the normal group (Gao et al., 2026).
Dr Guy and the researchers showed that children with FXS and ASD had more problems recognizing faces, using the ERPs. Dr. Gao was able to show that ERPs are important in children with ADHD as well, noting that those ERPs are possibly responsible for executive dysfunction. ERPs are seen as an important step into more information for those with developmental disorders.
I am curious to see what Dr. Guy does next. It was noted that it is incredibly hard to get the information they did, and I wonder if it would be easier or harder with different disorders. I have a younger sibling with autism, and I wonder if there are other things that affect her that I cannot see. Autism can be something difficult to have, especially in social situations, and I wonder if more information on the disorder can make it easier for children with autism to live with the disorder socially.
References
Gao, X., Zhong, L., He, H., Zhang, J., & Yang, W. (2026, April). Response inhibition and working memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders: An event-related potential study. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0387760426000185
Guy, M. W., Black, C. J., Hogan, A. L., Coyle, R. E., Richards, J. E., & Roberts, J. E. (2021, November). A single-session behavioral protocol for successful event-related potential recording in children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Developmental psychobiology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9523962/
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