Structural connectivity in adolescent synthetic cannabinoid users with and without ADHD

Abstract

Synthetic cannabinoids (SC) have become increasingly popular in the last few years, especially among adolescents. Given ADHD is overrepresented in patients with substance use across adolescents compared to the general population, the current study aims were two-fold: i) examine structural brain network topology in SC users compared to healthy controls and, ii) examine the influence of ADHD on network topology in SC users. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 27 SC users (14 without ADHD and 13 with ADHD combined type) and 13 controls. Structural networks were examined using network-based statistic and connectomic analysis. We found that SC users without ADHD..