Brain Matures Late in Kids With ADHD

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http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=3855328&page=1

Brain Scans Show Children With the Condition Lag Three Years Behind Peers

  
Brain scans may offer an explanation behind the apparent lag in brain development in children with ADHD. (ABC News Photo Illustration) By NIDHI THAREJA, M.D.
ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 12, 2007

Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder lag three years behind their peers when it comes to brain development, a new study suggests.

The study is the first to quantify the differences in brain development between children with ADHD and their non-ADHD counterparts.

\"In children with ADHD, the brain matures in a normal pattern but is delayed by three years in some regions, when compared to children without the disorder,\" said the study's lead investigator, Dr. Philip Shaw, a child psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health.

According to the National Resource Center on ADHD, the condition is the most common neurodevelopment disorder of childhood. It is present in 5 percent to 8 percent of school age children, with symptoms persisting into adulthood in as many as 60 percent of cases.

It is most commonly diagnosed in kids but can remain undiagnosed until adolescence, and even adulthood. Children afflicted with ADHD often have difficulty concentrating in school, engage in disruptive behavior during class, and are \"fidgety.\"


A Peek Into a Restless Mind
The new research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at brain development in kids with ADHD, using brain imaging techniques.

With sophisticated magnetic resonance imaging scans, Shaw and his colleagues looked at 40,000 different sites of the brain cortex in 446 children and measured brain thickness — a marker of brain maturation.

They found that in kids with ADHD, a certain part of the brain — specifically, a region in the front called the prefrontal cortex — matured approximately three years later, around the age of 10