Yi-Huan Wu1, Yu-Chun Lo2,
Shur-Fen Susan Gau3, Wen-Yih Isaac Tseng4,5
1School of Medicine,
National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan; 2Institute
of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 3Department
of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital & College of Medicine,
Taipei, Taiwan; 4Department of Medical Imaging, National Taiwan
University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 5Center for Optoelectronic
Biomedicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood. Deficits in neural circuits linking regions of the prefrontal cortex and the striatum (caudate nucleus and putamen) have been postulated to account for the core symptoms in ADHD. Using diffusion spectrum imaging, we found that children with ADHD had lower generalized fractional anisotropy of the fronto-striatal fibers compared with healthy children. This finding implies a disruption in the normal pattern of structural and functional connectivity in fronto-striatal brain regions in children with ADHD.