An investigation of abnormal brain connectivity associated with regions implicated in ADHD

Gordji, Roya (2016) An investigation of abnormal brain connectivity associated with regions implicated in ADHD. Undergraduate thesis, under the direction of Dwight Waddell from Electrical Engineering, University of Mississippi.

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Abstract

Research into the unique etiology of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has in recent years moved from a focus on dysfunction in brain regions to abnormalities between those regions. In this study, we examined the connectivity in brain areas that were deemed to be of particular significance to the disease in terms of their function and already known discrepancies in morphology and connectivity from healthy individuals. The thalamic VA nucleus and the hippocampus were the regions investigated. The data, obtained from the ADHD-200 Sample, consisted of MRI, clinical, and demographic data and were made up of 215 individuals, 117 of whom were categorized as having ADHD. Data were preprocessed and Region of Interest (ROI) analyses were completed before voxelwise connectivity analyses were performed for each ROI. The results indicated increased connectivity between the VA nucleus and the right central opercular cortex in subjects with ADHD. There have been few investigations into the connections present between the thalamus and the opercular cortex, and we believe this is the first to identify a functional connectivity existing in the VA nucleus that compares individuals with ADHD to those without. The existence of the operculum in the cingulo-opercular network (CON) indicates its functioning in executive control and maintenance of attention, which are hallmarks of ADHD. This further associates the opercular region with the disease. No abnormal connectivity involving the hippocampus was discovered.

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