Abnormal Dynamic Community Structure of Patients with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the Resting State

Abstract

Objective: Some static network studies have suggested that the community structure in the brains of ADHD patients is altered. However, ADHD is now increasingly regarded as a disorder of neural dynamics, but the dynamic reconstruction of brain communities in ADHD patients is far from being understood.

Method: Forty-two ADHD patients and fifty healthy controls participated in this study. We constructed a multilayer network model and calculated several metrics for quantifying community reconstruction at different levels. Results: Regardless of the level of research, the flexibility and cohesion of the ADHD patients were significantly higher than those of controls. In addition, the frontal lobe of ADHD patients presented a phenomenon of increasing peripheral areas and decreasing core areas.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that ADHD patients do have abnormalities in dynamic community structure. These evidences provide a new perspective that advances the present understanding of the dynamic organizational principles of communities in ADHD.

Keywords: ADHD; dynamic network reconfiguration; fMRI; multilayer community detection.