The Status of Structural and Functional MRI in Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

AbstractNeuroimaging has been widely used to evaluate the structural and functional integrity of the brain in persons with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) across the lifespan. Despite the wealth of research in ADHD, there is a dearth of research that has focused on the important developmental phase of adolescence, with most studies having combined children and adolescents within their sample. Online databases were searched for structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of ADHD where the sample included only or largely adolescents (age range 10 –19 years). Forty-four publications met inclusion criteria, of which 10 were structural MRI and 34 were functional MRI. Considerable variability was seen across studies in terms of methodology (e.g., diagnostic criteria, imaging analyses, functional MRI tasks), rendering it difficult to arrive at any firm conclusions. With that caveat, adolescents with ADHD have been commonly observed to have alterations in frontal-striatal regions, as well as other brain areas such as the thalamus, parietal lobes, and white matter pathways. Together, the evidence suggests a lag in brain maturation in adole scents with the disorder, though some degrees of normalization of brain abnormalities may be seen at least in a subset of this population. Further structural and functional MRI research focused on adolescents with ADHD will be important to elucidate the etiology and treatment of the disorder during this phas...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - Category: Medical Law Source Type: research