Memory consolidation of socially relevant stimuli during sleep in healthy children and children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder: What you can see in their eyes

Publication date: Available online 31 December 2016
Source:Biological Psychology
Author(s): Alexander Prehn-Kristensen, Ina Molzow, Alexandra Förster, Nadine Siebenhühner, Maxime Gesch, Christian D. Wiesner, Lioba Baving
Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) display deficits in sleep-dependent memory consolidation, and being comorbid with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), results in deficits in face processing. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of sleep in recognizing faces in children with ADHD+ODD. Sixteen healthy children and 16 children diagnosed with ADHD+ODD participated in a sleep and a wake condition. During encoding (sleep condition at 8 p.m.; wake condition at 8 a.m.) pictures of faces were rated according to their emotional content; the retrieval session (12h after encoding session) contained a recognition task including pupillometry. Pupillometry and behavioral data revealed that healthy children benefited from sleep compared to wake with respect to face picture recognition; in contrast recognition performance in patients with ADHD+ODD was not improved after sleep compared to wake. It is discussed whether in patients with ADHD+ODD social stimuli are preferentially consolidated during daytime.



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