To act or not to act, that's the problem: primarily inhibition difficulties in adult ADHD

A Marije Boonstra; J J Sandra Kooij; Jaap Oosterlaan; Joseph A Sergeant; Jan K Buitelaar

doi:10.1037/a0017670

To act or not to act, that's the problem: primarily inhibition difficulties in adult ADHD

Neuropsychology. 2010 Mar;24(2):209-21. doi: 10.1037/a0017670.

Authors

A Marije Boonstra¹, J J Sandra Kooij, Jaap Oosterlaan, Joseph A Sergeant, Jan K Buitelaar

Affiliation

¹ Program Adult ADHD, PsyQ, Carel Reinierszkade 197, 2593 HR, The Hague, the Netherlands, USA. [email protected]

PMID: 20230115
DOI: 10.1037/a0017670

Abstract

Forty-nine carefully diagnosed adults with persistent attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who had never been medicated for their ADHD, were compared with 49 normal control adults matched for age and gender on a large battery of tests in five domains of executive functioning (inhibition, fluency, planning, working memory, and set shifting) and several other neuropsychological functions to control for nonexecutive test demands. After stringent controls for nonexecutive function demands and IQ, adults with ADHD showed problems in inhibition and set shifting but not in any of the other executive functioning domains tested. We argue that adult ADHD may be mainly a disorder of inhibition.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Attention / physiology
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / physiopathology*
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / psychology*
Case-Control Studies
Executive Function / physiology*
Female
Humans
Inhibition, Psychological*
Male
Memory, Short-Term / physiology
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Verbal Behavior
Young Adult