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A study published today in AJP in Advance(1), the online(2) advance edition(3) of The American Journal of Psychiatry(4), the official journal of the American Psychiatric(5) Association(6), reveals for the first time shape differences in the brains(7) of children with ADHD(8), which could help pinpoint(9) the specific neural circuits(10) involved in(11) the disorder(12). Researchers(13) from the Kennedy Krieger Institute(14) in Baltimore, Md. and the Johns Hopkins Center for Imaging Science(15) used a powerful new analysis tool, large deformation(16) diffeomorphic mapping(17) (LDDMM), which allowed(18) them to expand on(19) previous volume studies(20) and examine the precise shape of the basal ganglia(21), a part of the brain critical(22) for controlling behavior and movement. The study found boys with the disorder showed significant shape differences and decreases in overall volume of the basal ganglia compared to their typically developing(23) peers(24). However, no shape or volume differences were revealed in girls with ADHD, adding to a body of(25) evidence suggesting sex strongly influences the disorder’s expression(26).

Previous studies examining the basal ganglia in children with ADHD were limited to volume analysis and had conflicting(27) results, with some reporting a smaller volume and some reporting no difference in volume. LDDMM provides detailed analysis of the shape of specific brain regions, allowing for precise examination of brain structures well beyond what has been examined in previous MRI(28) studies of ADHD. In this study, LDDMM was used to map(29) the brains of typically developing children in order to generate a basal ganglia template(30). This is the first reported template of the basal ganglia. After creating LDDMM mappings of the basal ganglia of each child with ADHD, statistical(31) analysis was conducted to compare them to the template.