Subcortical brain volume differences of participants with ADHD across the lifespan: an ENIGMA collaboration

By M. Hoogman, J. Bralten, D. Hibar, Maarten Mennes, M. Zwiers, L. Schweren, K. V. Hulzen, S. Medland, E. Shumskaya, Neda Jahanshad and 238 more. Lancet psychiatry, 2017

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BACKGROUND Neuroimaging studies show structural alterations in several brain regions in children and adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Through the formation of the worldwide ENIGMA ADHD Working Group, we addressed weaknesses of prior imaging studies and meta-analyses in sample size and methodological heterogeneity. METHODS Our sample comprised 1713 participants with ADHD and 1529 controls from 23 sites (age range: 4–63 years; 66% males). Individual sites analyzed magnetic resonance imaging brain scans with harmonized protocols. Case-control differences in subcortical structures and intracranial volume (ICV) were assessed through mega-and meta-analysis. FINDINGS The volumes of the accumbens (Cohen’s d=−0.15), amygdala (d=−0.19), caudate (d=−0.11), hippocampus (d=−0.11), putamen (d=−0.14), and ICV (d=−0.10) were found to be smaller in cases relative to controls. Effect sizes were highest in children, case-control differences were not present in adults. Explorative lifespan modeling suggested a delay of maturation and a delay of degeneration. Psychostimulant medication use or presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders did not influence results, nor did symptom scores correlate with brain volume. INTERPRETATION Using the largest data set to date, we extend the brain maturation delay theory for ADHD to include subcortical structures and refute medication effects on brain volume suggested by earlier meta-analyses. We add new knowledge about bilateral amygdala, accumbens, and hippocampus reductions in ADHD, and provide unprecedented precision in effect size estimates. Lifespan analyses suggest that, in the absence of well-powered longitudinal studies, the ENIGMA cross-sectional sample across six decades of life provides a means to generate hypotheses about lifespan trajectories in brain phenotypes. FUNDING National Institutes of Health

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Mental health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aaff13fabd3866311343cf9a2a2dc6fcef3bb85f

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Citations in the corpus

Application of Graph Theory for Identifying Connectivity Patterns in Human Brain Networks: A Systematic Review (2019, background): “Delayed maturation has further been reported in structural MRI studies (Hoogman et al., 2017), as well as in default network connectivity in youth with ADHD (Fair et al., 2010).”
Mental disorders in the entrepreneurship context : When Being Different Can Be an Advantage (2018, background): “As such, some mental disorders are associated with structural brain differences (Hoogman et al., 2017), which have genetic origins (e.”