White-matter abnormalities in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A diffusion tensor imaging study

Abstract

Current evidence suggests that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) involves dysfunction in wide functional networks of brain areas associated with attention and cognition. This study examines the structural integrity of white-matter neural pathways, which underpin these functional networks, connecting fronto-striatal and fronto-parietal circuits, in children with ADHD. Fifteen righthanded 8 to 18-year-old males with ADHD-combined type and 15 right-handed, age, verbal, and performance IQ-matched, healthy males underwent diffusion tensor imaging. A recent method of tractbased spatial statistics was used to examine fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity within major white-m..