Neuroanatomic and cognitive abnormalities in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the era of 'high definition' neuroimaging

Abstract

The ongoing release of the Human Connectome Project (HCP) data is a watershed event in clinical neuroscience. By attaining a quantum leap in spatial and temporal resolution within the framework of a twin/sibling design, this open science resource provides the basis for delineating brain-behavior relationships across the neuropsychiatric landscape. Here we focus on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is at least partly continuous across the population, highlighting constructs that have been proposed for ADHD and which are included in the HCP phenotypic battery. We review constructs implicated in ADHD (reward-related processing, inhibition, vigilant attention, reaction time variability, timing and emotional lability) which can be examined in the HCP data and in future 'high definition' clinical datasets.

Figure 1

The improvement in spatial resolution of the Human Connectome Project (HCP) data is illustrated for two separate individuals scanned at conventional “high resolution” (2 mm isotropic voxels) on the left and HCP “high definition” (1.25 mm isotropic voxels) on the right. Reproduced from Van Essen et al. [9] by permission.