The macrostructural and microstructural abnormalities of corpus callosum in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a combined morphometric and diffusion tensor MRI study

Abstract

The corpus callosum (CC) is one of focused target areas which may play an important role in the pathophysiology of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Conventional structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have revealed the macrostructural abnormalities of CC and its subdivisions in ADHD compared with controls. However, no study has examined the macrostructural and microstructural characteristics of the CC in the same ADHD group. In this study, MRI morphometric and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) techniques were combined to explore the area and measure fractional anisotropy (FA) abnormality of CC and its seven subdivisions in children with ADHD. Twenty-eight boys with ADHD (13.3+/-1.5 years) and 27 age- and gender- matched controls (13.2+/-0.9 years) were included. We co-registered individual structural MRI and DTI images manually and subdivided the midsagittal CC into seven subdivisions. The area and FA of the CC and its subdivisions were then compared between the patients and the matched controls. Results showed that ADHD had decreased area of entire CC, anterior middle-body, and isthmus. Meanwhile, reduced FA value of the isthmus was found in the ADHD group compared with the controls. Our study indicated that not only macrostructural abnormalities but also microstructural alterations in CC, especially in isthmus occurred in ADHD. The abnormality of the isthmus, the subdivision that contains the fibers connecting posterior regions of brain, may play an important role in the pathophysiology of ADHD and may be implicated in the disorders of attention.