Word: adhd
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Scientists have found that the brain development of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is delayed but otherwise typical, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Comparing brain scans of children aged 6 to 16 who had the common psychiatric disorder with scans of those who did not, researchers found that some areas in the ADHD brain - particularly those involved in thinking, attention and planning - matured an average of three years later than "healthy" brains, but otherwise followed normal patterns of development...
...results, which were published today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), offer new insight into why kids usually seem to outgrow their ADHD, says Dr. Philip Shaw, who led the research team at the Child Psychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). "It doesn't mean we can just sit back and do nothing," Shaw says, but the findings complement "what psychiatrists have been telling parents for years," that most kids with ADHD do get better...
Shaw and his colleagues compiled data from the brain scans of 446 children, half of whom had ADHD. The scans used new imaging technology that allowed researchers to "watch" some 40,000 points in the subjects' brains over time, and to figure out which specific regions of the brain developed, or thickened, at different rates. On average, in children with ADHD, the age at which 50% of the 40,000 points on the cortex - the brain's outer mantle - achieved peak thickness was 10 1/2, three years behind the typically developing kids whose cortex matured...
Aside from the timing of maturation, the brains of children with ADHD appear to develop the same way typical brains do, from back to front. "Do [kids with ADHD] have basically have the same sequence of brain development? That's a yes," says Shaw. "Do they completely catch up with other kids? That's what we're looking...
...ADHD is the most common psychiatric childhood disorder in the United States, but it's not bound by geography; diagnosis of ADHD is increasing globally. Since 1993, use of stimulant drugs to treat ADHD has more than tripled worldwide, according to one study. Symptoms for the disorder include impulsiveness, hyperactivity and poor concentration, and can develop over several months. Though most people outgrow the hyperactivity aspect - characterized by having trouble sitting still, moving around when others are seated, or talking while others are talking - about a quarter to a third of children and teenagers carry their ADHD into adulthood. Some...