New Type of MRI Reveals Brain Function Changes in Children with ADHD

July 25, 2024

From age 8 to 12, children with ADHD experience significant functional changes in the brain regions that control motor and executive function, as well as visual processing and spatial cognition, suggests new research published in the journal Scientific Reports. ¹

For the study, a research team from Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) in South Korea analyzed the brain scans of 157 children diagnosed with ADHD and 109 children without the condition using a noninvasive imaging technique that uses magnets to label and measure cerebral blood flow (CBF). The researchers found that brain scans of children with ADHD, ages 8 to 9, revealed lower blood flow in the brain regions associated with motor and executive functions. The researchers also detected significantly lower CBF in children with ADHD, ages 10 to 12, in brain areas related to visual processing and spatial cognition. They did not find any significant differences in CBF between children with ADHD, ages 6 to 7, and their matched control group.

The scans also suggest that children with ADHD experience higher blood flow in specific brain regions, indicating slower brain maturation. This finding supports previous studies suggesting that children with ADHD mature more slowly than their neurotypical peers, especially in terms of executive function.

“It is estimated that children and adolescents with ADHD trail behind their neurotypical peers by a few years,” says Ellen Littman, Ph.D. ²

Ryan Wexelbatt, LCSW, explains that “a child with ADHD has a two- to three-year delay in their executive function (EF) skills, which means a 7-year-old has the executive function skills of a 4- or 5-year-old. A 13-year-old’s EF age is between 10 and 11, and a 19-year-old’s EF age is about 16.”

ASL-MRI’s Potential to Diagnosis ADHD

According to the researchers, the study’s results demonstrate the potential of arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL-MRI) to diagnose and evaluate ADHD across different age groups.

“Understanding associated changes in brain development may be critically important in treating and mitigating ADHD,” they say. “ASL has the potential to be a good diagnostic and evaluation test for ADHD.” ASL-MRIs may be particularly advantageous for children because the procedure takes approximately five minutes and does not require injections or radiation exposure.

ASL-MRI joins a growing list of Neuroimaging tools (i.e., Brain SPECT, PET and CAT scans, and fMRI) that show promise for identifying the underlying brain systems associated with ADHD.

“Advances in brain-imaging techniques may lead to a better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying ADHD. However, there are caveats,” said Peter Jensen, M.D., the president and CEO of The REACH Institute, in the ADDitude article “The Future of ADHD Research Looks Like This.” “It appears that single neuroimaging receptor or cellular studies have provided clues about differences in brain structure and functioning in individuals with ADHD, but the brain comprises billions of interacting cells, circuits, and networks that do or do not work together during specific tasks.”

“Neuroimaging tools cannot yet make an accurate diagnosis of ADHD, but we’ll look for important breakthroughs in this area,” Jensen said in discussing how scientific discoveries could lead to the recognition of more than a dozen ADHD subtypes, and the implications of such findings in the ADDitude webinar “Unlocking the Future of ADHD: Advances in Research, Diagnosis, & Treatment.”

The South Korean research team says that more studies involving larger sample sizes and covariates are needed to “delineate the developmental trajectory of ADHD more precisely and to enhance the diagnostic capabilities of ASL-MRI in the understanding and management of ADHD.”

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