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Review
. 2023 Oct:153:105389.
doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105389. Epub 2023 Sep 12.

A systematic review of behavioral and neurobiological profiles associated with coexisting attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental coordination disorder

Marija Pranjić  1 , Navin Rahman  2 , Adelia Kamenetskiy  2 , Kaitlin Mulligan  2 , Stephen Pihl  2 , Anne B Arnett  3
Affiliations
Review

A systematic review of behavioral and neurobiological profiles associated with coexisting attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental coordination disorder

Marija Pranjić et al. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2023 Oct.

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD) co-occur in approximately 50% of cases. This study aimed to characterize the behavioral, cognitive, and neurobiological profiles of co-occurring ADHD and DCD diagnoses by mapping, synthesizing, and providing a critical appraisal of the existing literature. A systematic search was conducted across four databases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, and Scopus) to identify studies comparing a coexisting ADHD+DCD diagnosis to ADHD and DCD alone. From 2353 screened articles, 15 behavioral and 10 neuroimaging studies were included. Collectively, these studies suggest that the comorbid ADHD+DCD presentation constitutes a more severe phenotype characterized by neurocognitive differences associated with both conditions. Despite sharing some common neural features, our findings support the separate etiology hypothesis indicating that neural network alterations in individuals with ADHD+DCD represent a unique neural pattern rather than a sum of ADHD and DCD characteristics. Considering the heterogeneity inherent to both ADHD and DCD, future studies should involve rigorous and comprehensive assessment procedures to delineate how different subtypes of each diagnosis relate to distinct performance characteristics.

Keywords: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Comorbidity; Developmental coordination disorder (DCD); Dyspraxia; Neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Selection of sources of evidence (PRISMA 2020 flow diagram).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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