Brain alterations in adult ADHD: Effects of gender, treatment and comorbid depression
Open accessAbstract
Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have smaller volumes of total brain matter and subcortical regions, but it is unclear whether these represent delayed maturation or persist into adulthood. We performed a structural MRI study in 119 adult ADHD patients and 107 controls and investigated total gray and white matter and volumes of accumbens, caudate, globus pallidus, putamen, thalamus, amygdala and hippocampus. Additionally, we investigated effects of gender, stimulant treatment and history of major depression (MDD). There was no main effect of ADHD on the volumetric measures, nor was any effect observed in a secondary voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis of the entire brain. However, in the volumetric analysis a significant gender by diagnosis interaction was found for caudate volume. Male patients showed reduced right caudate volume compared to male controls, and caudate volume correlated with hyperactive/impulsive symptoms. Furthermore, patients using stimulant treatment had a smaller right hippocampus volume compared to medication-naïve patients and controls. ADHD patients with previous MDD showed smaller hippocampus volume compared to ADHD patients with no MDD. While these data were obtained in a cross-sectional sample and need to be replicated in a longitudinal study, the findings suggest that developmental brain differences in ADHD largely normalize in adulthood. Reduced caudate volume in male patients may point to distinct neurobiological deficits underlying ADHD in the two genders. Smaller hippocampus volume in ADHD patients with previous MDD is consistent with neurobiological alterations observed in MDD.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Reduced caudate volume in male adults with ADHD compared with neurotypical male adults correlates with hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, but no such effect is observed in female adults.
“Reduced caudate volume in male adults diagnosed with ADHD compared with neurotypical male adults correlated with hyperactive–impulsive symptoms, whereas no such effect was observed in female adults203.”
From Sex and gender in neurodevelopmental conditions (2023) · cites this paper as [203]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 76 · Cited by 131
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Kooij, J.J., 2010. Adult ADHD. Diagnostic Assessment and Treat- ment, 1st ed. Pearson Assessment and Information BV, Amsterdam.
- Authors
- Onnink, A. M. H., Zwiers, M. P., Hoogman, M., Mostert, J. C., Kan, C. C., Buitelaar, J., & Franke, B.
- Affiliations
- Radboud University Medical Center (NL)
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Franke, Barbara
- ORCID
- Venue
- European Neuropsychopharmacology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-03
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 397-409
- ISSN
- 0924-977X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2094966336
- Cited by
- 131
- References
- 76
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 5
- FWCI
- 8.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- European Neuropsychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- adult ADHD, brain structure, caudate volume, hippocampal volume, gray matter volume, white matter volume, gender differences, stimulant medication, hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, subcortical structures, brain maturation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Central Nervous System Stimulants, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Brain, Caudate Nucleus, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depressive Disorder, Major, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Organ Size, Sex Factors, Cohort Studies, Comorbidity
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
