Absence of gender effect on children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder as assessed by optimized voxel-based morphometry

Yang, Pinchen; Wang, Pei-Ning; Chuang, Kai-Hsiang; Jong, Yuh-Jyh; Chao, Tzu-Cheng; Wu, Ming-Ting

doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2007.12.013

« Previous Next »Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
Volume 164, Issue 3 , Pages 245-253, 30 December 2008

Absence of gender effect on children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder as assessed by optimized voxel-based morphometry

Pinchen Yang
- Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University and Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Pei-Ning Wang
- Department of Neurology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
- School of Medicine, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
Kai-Hsiang Chuang
- Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, Singapore
Yuh-Jyh Jong
- Department of Pediatrics and Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Tzu-Cheng Chao
- Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Ming-Ting Wu
- School of Medicine, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Department of Radiology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
- Corresponding author. Department of Radiology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung and School of Medicine, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan. Tel.: +886 9 68971566; fax: +886 7 3468301.

Received 6 December 2006; received in revised form 19 October 2007; accepted 22 December 2007.

Abstract

Brain abnormalities, as determined by structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have been reported in patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, female subjects have been underrepresented in previous reports. In this study, we used optimized voxel-based morphometry to compare the total and regional gray matter volumes between groups of 7- to 17-year-old ADHD and healthy children (total 114 subjects). Fifty-seven children with ADHD (n=57, 35 males and 22 females) and healthy children (n=57) received MRI scans. Segmented brain MRI images were normalized into standardized stereotactic space, modulated to allow volumetric analysis, smoothed and compared at the voxel level with statistical parametric mapping. Global volumetric comparisons between groups revealed that the total brain volumes of ADHD children were smaller than those of the control children. As for the regional brain analysis, the brain volumes of ADHD children were found to be bilaterally smaller in the following regions as compared with normal control values: the caudate nucleus and the cerebellum. There were two clusters of regional decrease in the female brain, left posterior cingulum and right precuneus, as compared with the male brain. Brain regions showing the interaction effect of diagnosis and gender were negligible. These results were consistent with the hypothesized dysfunctional systems in ADHD, and they also suggested that neuroanatomical abnormalities in ADHD were not influenced by gender.

Keywords: Magnetic resonance imaging, Sex, Brain volume