ADHD, Author Interviews, Neurology, Pediatrics / 15.12.2025
ADHD: Collaborative Study Finds Symptom Improvement in Children Identified by EEG Marker and Treated with Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_71800" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Dakwar-Kawar, PhD[/caption]
Dr. Ornella Dakwar-Kawar
Hebrew University with
Prof. Mor Nahum and Prof. Itai Berger
Hebrew University
in collaboration with Prof. Jyoti Mishra from the University of California San Diego (UCSD)
Prof. Roi Cohen Kadosh from the University of Surre,
Dr. Pragathi Priyadharsini and
Ashwin Amal from ITT Karpur, India and InnoSphere Ltd
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Children with ADHD often exhibit aberrant neural activity, specifically imbalances in excitation and inhibition levels alongside dysfunction in brain networks like the frontoparietal network. While our previous research showed that Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation or tRNS improves clinical symptoms, the specific neural modulation effects during cognitive tasks remained unclear. This study investigated these mechanisms by analyzing the aperiodic exponent, a marker of excitation inhibition balance, during an inhibitory control task to compare children with ADHD to healthy controls and assess changes following tRNS combined with cognitive training.
Dr. Dakwar-Kawar, PhD[/caption]
Dr. Ornella Dakwar-Kawar
Hebrew University with
Prof. Mor Nahum and Prof. Itai Berger
Hebrew University
in collaboration with Prof. Jyoti Mishra from the University of California San Diego (UCSD)
Prof. Roi Cohen Kadosh from the University of Surre,
Dr. Pragathi Priyadharsini and
Ashwin Amal from ITT Karpur, India and InnoSphere Ltd
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Children with ADHD often exhibit aberrant neural activity, specifically imbalances in excitation and inhibition levels alongside dysfunction in brain networks like the frontoparietal network. While our previous research showed that Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation or tRNS improves clinical symptoms, the specific neural modulation effects during cognitive tasks remained unclear. This study investigated these mechanisms by analyzing the aperiodic exponent, a marker of excitation inhibition balance, during an inhibitory control task to compare children with ADHD to healthy controls and assess changes following tRNS combined with cognitive training.
L. Levi[/caption]
Liran Levi, PhD student
Faculty of Medicine at Hebrew University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Motivated behavior is driven by a group of brain regions called collectively the reward system. This neural system is at the heart of every decision we make about our actions - it integrates information about the world and decides whether to perform a behavior or not based on the predicted reward/benefit. The key molecule in this process is dopamine - whenever we perform a behavior that provides a reward dopamine is released in the reward system and reinforces this behavior. Drugs of abuse exploit this system - they cause abnormally high levels of dopamine, and thus force the reward system to seek drugs constantly, even after prolonged withdrawal. From a neurobiological perspective, that is how we view substance dependence - the reward system drives people to seek for the reward.
Shani Vaknine[/caption]
Shani Vaknine, Ph.D. candidate
Brain and Behavioral Sciences
The Hebrew University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We’ve long known that maternal stress during pregnancy can affect her baby’s development, but the molecular mechanisms behind this remained unclear. In our study, we explored how psychosocial stress experienced by the mother in late pregnancy influences tiny molecular fragments in the newborn’s blood. These fragments, called transfer RNA fragments or tRFs, were considered for many years to be disposable, but have recently been shown to have important biological functions.
Prof. Monsonego Ornan[/caption]
Efrat Monsonego Ornan, Ph.D
Head of School of Nutritional Sciences
Institute of Biochemistry and Nutrition
The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture,
Food and Environment
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Food supplies in recent decades have been dominated by heavily processed, ready-to-eat products. Essentially, 75% of all world food sales are of processed foods. Over the past 30 years, children’s ultra-processed food intake has increased markedly, with 50% of the children in the US consuming these foods. Only in the US does UPF comprise 58% of energy intake, of which 90% is derived from added sugars. This reflects children’s excessive consumption of food and drink that are high in fat and refined sugars but do not provide appropriate levels of the proteins, vitamins and minerals required for growth.
The negative health outcomes of excessive consumption of Ultra-processed food are well known, include obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes, and considered as the current world epidemic; the fact that children, during their postnatal development period (birth to adolescent), are the target of the Ultra-processed food industry is very disturbing in terms of public health. Bone development and growth are the characteristic phenomena of the childhood period. Yet, in spite of the huge importance of nutrition to bone development, the impact of Ultra-processed food consumption on skeleton development during childhood has never been studied directly, and this was the purpose of our study.
To this end, we used young rats which are an excellent pre-clinical model for growth and fed them with either the recommended diet for their age or a diet comprised of a typical Ultra-processed meal (a roll, hamburger, tomatoes, lettuce, ketchup and French fries) and a caloric soft drink.