'The participant gets into the routine of pressing the button as the letters appear on the screen. 'The participant is instructed to press a button whenever a letter appears on the screen except when the letter X appears,' he said. Jacobson explained how the Go/No-go task was used in this study. All of the young adults performed a Go/No-go task, which requires the participant to attend and respond selectively to non-target stimuli (Go) and inhibit responses to a target stimulus (No-go). Jacobson and his colleagues examined event-related potentials (ERPs), which reflect changes in the brain's electrical activity in response to a particular stimulus or condition, in 102 (54 women, 48 men) 19-year-olds. 'A large proportion of children with a history of prenatal alcohol exposure exhibits these behavioral characteristics and, therefore, may meet the criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD.' ' ADHD is clinically diagnosed primarily on the basis of observations by the parent, teacher, and clinician regarding the degree to which a child exhibits specific behavioral symptoms, such as difficulty sustaining attention to and completing tasks or play activities, failure to listen when spoken to directly, impulsivity, talking out of turn, or difficulty sitting still,' explained Joseph Jacobson, professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and the study's corresponding author. Results will be published in the April 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

Prenatal alcohol exposure x adhd