Online Neuroplasticity Training for Remediation of ADHD in Adolescent Children (ONTRAC)
Condition: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
MeSH terms: Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This project shall rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of a novel, neuroplasticity-based
      internet-deliverable cognitive training program, which specifically targets the treatment of
      core cognitive dysfunctions observed in adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
      Disorder (ADHD/ADD), to be tested in a clinical population in New Delhi, India.
    

Detailed description: 
      Children diagnosed with ADHD, now comprising nearly 9% of American children and a similar
      proportion of Indian children, are at risk for failure or drop out from school, prone to
      developing addictions, having driving accidents, committing felonies later in life and suffer
      from an overall poor quality of life. Rescuing the cognitive faculties of these children is
      thus of immediate importance, not only from the perspective of the individual, but also from
      the urgency posed by the large socio-economic and health-care burdens associated with this
      disorder.

      The investigators have recently developed an efficient, state-of-the-art, web-based,
      cost-effective and highly scalable cognitive training program for ADHD ('Rewired') that can
      translate into real-life functional gains for the affected children. The novel program
      targets the fundamental neurobehavioral/ cognitive deficits identified in this disorder.
      These include deficits in general alertness, selective attention and working memory of
      goal-relevant information, control of impulsive actions and suppression of distracting
      information - a panoply of problems that have not been comprehensively addressed by any
      intervention in this population to-date.

      Recent advances in neuroscientific research have provided key insight into the application of
      brain-based methods to behavioral training to drive substantial functional gains. This
      research forms the mechanistic basis of the development approach. Moreover, the principal
      exercise forms in the training program have independently demonstrated significant benefits
      in other attentionally-impaired populations towards remediation of the core cognitive
      deficits that intersect with the deficient domains in ADHD. Here, the core exercise forms
      have been tailored and elaborated into a comprehensive program suite of 26 engaging,
      performance-adaptive, and rewarding training modules that provide 30 hours of rigorous
      neuroplasticity-based cognitive training for children with ADHD. The investigators propose to
      validate the usability and feasibility of this novel training program in a randomized
      controlled trial (RCT) setting. It is hypothesized that improvements in the specific core
      cognitive domains deficient in ADHD, shall translate to better overall cognitive function in
      daily life as well as significant reduction of ADHD symptom severity. The current
      intervention ultimately projects a better life quality for children with ADHD, and has the
      potential to substantially reduce the large personal, familial, societal and economic burden
      associated with the disorder worldwide.
    

Intervention name(s): Cognitive Training; Active Control
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The training comprises a suite of 26 engaging, performance-adaptive, and rewarding training modules that provide 30 hours of rigorous neuroplasticity-based cognitive training for children with ADHD addressing deficits in core cognitive domains of alertness, selective attention and working memory of goal-relevant information, control of impulsive actions and suppression of distracting information.; Participants will engage in any 4 of 13 suite games (visual tiled puzzles, word games etc.) from the Hoyle Puzzle and Board games program. Suite games are randomly assigned in each session.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double (Participant, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment