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ADHD children 'have different sleep ethic'
Author: Jonathan Warren
Sleep helps consolidate emotional memories in healthy children, though youngsters with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not have the same benefits from a night's rest, according to new research published this month in open access journal PLOS ONE.
Alexander Prehn-Kristensen and his team at University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Germany studied those with ADHD carefully to discover that this lack of sleep-related emotional processing may be a key driver in exacerbating emotional problems during the daytime.
In the research, healthy adults, healthy children and children with ADHD were shown pictures with emotional relevance to them, from scary-looking animals to more neutral images of umbrellas and lamps. Brain activity was then monitored as they slept, with recollection tested the next morning. Healthy children had the best recollection, moreso than healthy adults - though children with ADHD were the least receptive.
Authors will now undertake further studies to confirm whether this emotional function of sleep develops with time in adults with ADHD, or whether it persists in sufferers of all ages.
