SAAND Project: Attention and arousal in neurodevelopmental disorders
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The SAAND Project: Studying Attention and Arousal regulation in neurodevelopmental disorders: comparison between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
IRAS ID
220158
Contact name
Madeleine J Groom
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
Attentional control is crucial to everyday learning in both home and school environments. For example, being able to orient towards a voice calling for attention, shifting attention between people and objects are all basic building blocks of learning and adaptive functioning. In individuals with developmental disorders though, these abilities can be impaired. For example, people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) find it difficult to sustain attention and tend to be distracted easily. In contrast, people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) respond to social as compared to non-social features of the world differently and find it difficult to attend to complex information. Furthermore, ASD and ADHD often co-occur and little is known about the reasons behind their overlap. Since both ASD and ADHD are associated with impairments in control of attention, that could be one reason for their overlap.
This project will focus on better understanding neural and physiological mechanisms behind the impairments in attention and arousal in ASD and ADHD. We will determine whether the co-occurrence of ASD and ADHD is explained by overlapping deficits in attentional control or whether the pattern of impairments in different in ASD as compared to ADHD. To do this, we will ask recruited children to perform computerised assessments and record their visual behaviour through eye-tracking, to determine how they direct and focus their attention and whether this is impacted by the kind of stimuli. During certain computerised assessments, we will also record their heart rate and brain activity to assess how their vigilance to the environment changes over time and whether certain stimuli are easier for them to attend to and process than others. We anticipate that our findings will be relevant for informing the diagnostic process and the design of educational and clinical interventions in neurodevelopmental disorders and rehabilitative practices.REC name
East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EM/0193
Date of REC Opinion
16 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion