ADHD Delays Growth of Certain Brain Areas

ADHD Delays Growth of Certain Brain Areas
MONDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- While some regions of the brainmature a few years late in youngsters with attention deficit hyperactivitydisorder (ADHD), their brains do develop in a normal pattern, concludes astudy by researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health(NIMH).
They found that the delay in brain maturation in children with ADHD wasmost prominent in regions at the front of the brain's outer mantle(cortex), which is involved in thinking, planning and attention.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the brains of 223 childrenwith ADHD revealed that half of 40,000 cortex sites attained peakthickness at an average age of 10.5, compared to age 7.5 in a group ofchildren without ADHD.
However, both youngsters with ADHD and those without the disordershowed a similar back-to-front progression of brain maturation withdifferent regions peaking in thickness at different times.
"Finding a normal pattern of cortex maturation, albeit delayed, inchildren with ADHD should be reassuring to families and could help toexplain why many youth eventually seem to grow out of the disorder,"research team leader Dr. Philip Shaw, of the NIHM Child Psychiatry Branch,said in a prepared statement.
The study was published this week in the online edition of the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
These findings support the theory that ADHD is caused by a delay incortex maturation, the researchers said. They plan to investigate thegenetic roots of this delay and methods of promoting recovery fromADHD.