Basal ganglia volume and shape in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Abstract

Objective: Volumetric abnormalities of basal ganglia have been associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), especially in boys. To specify localization of these abnormalities, large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping (LDDMM) was used to examine the effects of ADHD, sex, and their interaction on basal ganglia shapes.

Method: The basal ganglia (caudate, putamen, globus pallidus) were manually delineated on magnetic resonance imaging from 66 typically developing children (35 boys) and 47 children (27 boys) with ADHD. LDDMM mappings from 35 typically developing children were used to generate basal ganglia templates. Shape variations of each structure relative to the template were modeled for each subject as a random field using Laplace-Beltrami basis functions in the template coordinates. Linear regression was used to examine group differences in volumes and shapes of the basal ganglia.

Results: Boys with ADHD showed significantly smaller basal ganglia volumes compared with typically developing boys, and LDDMM revealed the groups remarkably differed in basal ganglia shapes. Volume compression was seen bilaterally in the caudate head and body and anterior putamen as well as in the left anterior globus pallidus and right ventral putamen. Volume expansion was most pronounced in the posterior putamen. No volume or shape differences were revealed in girls with ADHD.

Conclusions: The shape compression pattern of basal ganglia in boys with ADHD suggests that ADHD-associated deviations from typical brain development involve multiple frontal-subcortical control loops, including circuits with premotor, oculomotor, and prefrontal cortices. Further investigations employing brain-behavior analyses will help to discern the task-dependent contributions of these circuits to impaired response control that is characteristic of ADHD.

FIGURE 1

Medial View of the Left and Right Basal Ganglia Templates^{a a} The caudate (C), putamen (P), and globus pallidus (G) are respectively represented in blue, yellow, and green.

FIGURE 2

Basal Ganglia Volume Measurements^{a a} Asterisks and circles denote the volume measurement from the typically developing (TYP) children (35 boys and 30 girls) and children with ADHD (27 boys and 20 girls), respectively. Bars represent the mean location within each group.

FIGURE 3

Significant Group Difference in Surface Deformation Between the Typically Developing Boys (N=35) and Boys With ADHD (N=27)^{a a}Panels A and B illustrate the difference map of the left basal ganglia in the medial and lateral views, while panels C and D show the difference map of the right basal ganglia in the medial and lateral views. Color encodes the local volume ratio of the typically developing group to the ADHD group in the logarithmic scale and indicates the strength of the shape alteration in ADHD. Warm color denotes the regions that are compressed in the boys with ADHD when compared with the typically developing boys, while cool color depicts the regions that are expanded in the boys with ADHD relative to the typically developing boys. Key: C=caudate, P=putamen, G=globus pallidus.