ADHD News 2017: People With ADHD Found to Have Delayed Brain Development, Not 'Just a Label'
The latest research on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has revealed that those with the condition have been found to have delayed development in five regions of the brain.
In a recent study published by The Lancet Psychiatry, the aim was to use neuroimaging to determine if there were structural differences in the brains of children and adults with ADHD compared with people who have not been diagnosed with the condition. The study also intended to address the weaknesses of previous studies that had inadequate sample sizes and used varying techniques.
Based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans of 1,713 participants with ADHD and 1,529 control participants, with ages ranging from 4 to 63, it was found that ADHD is associated with smaller brains, specifically the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate nucleus, hippocampus and putamen. Overall intracranial volume was also found to be smaller.
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Meanwhile, there was no difference in the participants' pallidum and thalamus.
They study also found that there seemed to be a delay of maturation and a delay of degeneration as results were most evident in children below 15 years of age.
The findings are notable as the researchers hypothesize that the amygdala is involved in regulating emotion and the nucleus accumbens could have implications on motivation and emotional problems via reward processing. The hippocampus is also said to have a role in motivation and emotion.
Aside from difficulty in focusing, ADHD is also associated with having trouble in regulating and processing emotions, which is supported by these findings.
Given that there seems to be a biological explanation for ADHD, the study aims to change the prevalent negative perception that is associated with the condition.
"The results from our study confirm that people with ADHD have differences in their brain structure and therefore suggest that ADHD is a disorder of the brain. We hope that this will help reduce stigma that ADHD is 'just a label' for difficult children or caused by poor parenting," said lead researcher Dr. Martine Hoogman.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of 2011, approximately 11 percent of children aged 4–17, which is about 6.4 million, have been diagnosed with ADHD.
