Developmental Deviation in the Cortico-Striatal Response in Children with ADHD: fMRI Evidence using a Sustained Attention Task

Vaibhav A. Diwadkar¹, Jacqueline Radwan¹, Mahya Rahimian Mashhadi², Dalal Khatib¹, Olivia McGarragle¹, Patrick Pruitt³, Arthur Robin¹, David R. Rosenberg¹, Jeffrey A. Stanley¹

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a serious public health problem. We recently reported age-related biochemical deficits in the prefrontal cortex of ADHD children using ³¹P spectroscopy suggesting a lack of a progressive neurodevelopment in ADHD children. However, the functional basis of this effect has not been investigated using fMRI. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether ADHD children would show a similar lack of age-related changes in sustained attention performance. We hypothesized that healthy children will show an age-related increase in the fMRI BOLD response to attention performance, which will be absent in ADHD children.