People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have smaller brains than those who don’t have the disorder, according to a new medical study that claims there’s more behind ADHD than just bad behavior.
The analysis found that the brains of people with ADHD had “structural differences” and evidence of delayed development compared to those who don’t suffer from it.
The study, the largest to date of the brains of those with ADHD, was conducted by The Lancet: Psychiatry.
“We hope that this will help to reduce stigma that ADHD is ‘just a label’ for difficult children or caused by poor parenting,” said lead author Martine Hoogman of Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands.
The study examined 1,713 people with ADHD and 1,529 people without, ranging in age from 4 to 63 years old.
MRI scans measured the overall brain volume of each participant and the size of seven regions believed to be linked to ADHD — the pallidum, thalamus, caudate nucleaus, putamen, nucleaus accumbens, amygdala and hippocampus.
Brain volume and the size of five of the brain regions were smaller in those with ADHD, including the amygdala, which is responsible for emotions, the study found.
The differences were found mostly in children but also in adults with the condition.
“These differences are very small — in the range of a few percent — so the unprecedented size of our study was crucial to help identify these,” Hoogman said.
“Similar differences in brain volume are also seen in other psychiatric disorders, especially major depressive disorder.”
The study ruled out the possibility that the brain changes were caused by ADHD drugs. There was no difference between people who were taking ADHD medication and those who weren’t.
ADHD, which is most common in children but also affects adults, causes severe patterns of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
About 11 percent of children between ages 4 and 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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