Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Crucial parts of brains of children with attention deficit disorder develop more slowly than other youngsters’ brains, a phenomenon that earlier brain-imaging research missed, a new study says.
Developing more slowly in ADHD youngsters — the lag can be as much as three years — are brain regions that suppress inappropriate actions and thoughts, focus attention, remember things from moment to moment, work for reward and control movement. That was the finding of researchers, led by Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health, who reported the most detailed study yet on this problem in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Finding a normal pattern of cortex maturation, albeit delayed, in children with ADHD should be reassuring to families and could help to explain why many youth eventually seem to grow out of the disorder,” Shaw said in a statement.
But not all children do outgrow the disorder, and co-author Dr. Judith Rapoport, also of the NIMH Child Psychiatry Branch, said the researchers are working to determine the differences between those who have a good outcome and those who do not.
Between 3 percent and 5 percent of school-age children are thought to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Dr. Louis Kraus, chief of child psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said “what is really important about this study is it shows us there is clearly something biologically driven for children with ADHD.”
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