Aberrant effective connectivity of the ventral putamein boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorde

Abstract

Objective The connectivity alterations in the putamen were found in revealing the neural correlates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but whether the effective connectivity of the putamen is atypical in ADHD remains unclear. Investigating this abnor-mality contributes to describing the neural circuit of ADHD at the level of macrostructural organization. Methods Data were acquired from thirty-two boys with ADHD and fifty-two matched typically developing controls (TDC) from Peking University (Peking) dataset deposited at the Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC) platform. We examined the effective connectivity of the putamen using Granger causality analysis (GCA) and then determined whether these connections could differentiate ADHD from TDC. Results Compared with TDC, the ADHD group showed decreased effective connectivity from the left ventral rostral putamen (VRto left calcarine (CAL), right medial part of the superior frontal gyrus, left orbital part of superior frontal gyrus and left middle occipigyrus (MOG). Increased effective connectivity from the left inferior occipital gyrus and right lingual gyrus to left VRP was also found ADHD. The result of the classification accuracy showed that 72.3% of participants were correctly classified using support vector mchine. Moreover, GCA values from the left VRP to left CAL and left MOG were significantly correlated with hyper/impulsive scores patients with ADHD. Conclusion The findings may help extend our understanding of the ADHD-related neural loops.