Pediatric Cognitive Reserve Moderates the Effect of Brain Structure in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence for an Optimized Residual Approach

In this episode, Dr. Scott Sperling and Dr. Kritika Nayar discuss the article Pediartic cognitive reserve moderates the effect of brain structure in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence for an optimized residual approach with the paper's first author Dr. Zubin Irani. This study examined the construct validity of a residual-based cognitive reserve index in a sample of pediatric patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Analyses included 115 children, 43 of which met diagnostic criteria for ADHD. Each participant underwent neuropsychological testing and neuroimaging at multiple time points. Statistical methods involved elastic-net regularized linear regression. Overall, cognitive reserve was shown to predict academic achievement (math computation at baseline, change in word reading over time). There was also evidence of cognitive reserve moderating the effect of total grey matter volume on baseline academic academic achievement as well as baseline ADHD symptoms. Taken together, results support this methodology for calculating cognitive reserve and its utility in a pediatric population.