Towards a Network-Based Understanding of ADHD Symptoms, Musical Expertise, and Timing Abilities
Hello and welcome to my presentation!
I recently completed my BSc in Neuroscience and I am now joining the MD-PhD program at McGill. My research at the Sequence Production Lab has focused on sensorimotor flexibility and neural mechanisms of auditory-motor coordination using EEG. This summer, the aim of my project was to work towards a network-based understanding of the link between ADHD symptoms, musicianship, and timing abilities.
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I look forward to answering your questions on Tuesday, August 10 from 3:10-4:30 PM at the symposium link.
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Towards a Network-Based Understanding of ADHD Symptoms, Musical Expertise, and Timing Abilities
Timing abilities, response inhibition, and attentional skills play important roles in the effective allocation of motor and cognitive resources. Basal ganglia and cerebellar networks may support beat-based and interval-based timing, respectively; existing research also suggests that these networks are involved in inhibitory control and ADHD pathophysiology. Furthermore, musical training enhances sensorimotor integration and executive function. Less is known about how musical expertise may differentially affect beat-based timing, interval-based timing, and inhibitory control in individuals on different levels of the ADHD continuum. Using behavioural experiments and the Barkley Adult ADHD Rating Scale-IV, this project examines the hypothesis that musical training enhances timing abilities by improving inhibitory control, especially in individuals with more ADHD symptoms. Participants were 56 adults, split between musicians and nonmusicians and comprising the tail ends of the ADHD symptom score distribution of a larger sample of 112 adults. Participants performed two rhythm perception tasks, relying on beat-based and interval-based timing, and two inhibitory control tasks, tapping into motor and cognitive inhibition. Nonmusicians with more ADHD symptoms made more go/no-go commission errors than any other group. Since avoiding commission errors requires motor inhibition, one possibility is that musical training reduced the effect of ADHD symptoms on motor inhibition. Individuals with more ADHD symptoms made more go/no-go omission errors than those with fewer symptoms. A Stroop effect was observed in all participants. Musically trained individuals responded more accurately in the Beat Alignment Test (BAT) than untrained individuals, and there was no effect of musicianship on interval discrimination. Only in the high ADHD symptom group, performance in the BAT correlated with inhibitory control. Taken together, these results suggest that musical training may improve response control in individuals with high ADHD symptom levels by altering the dynamics of go/no-go networks involved in motor inhibition and basal ganglia networks involved in beat-based timing.