MRI Morphometry of the Cerebral Ventricles in Patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

摘要

A total of 27 right-handed patients aged 7-30 years with diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity dis-order were studied using standard MRI scans. Of these, 14 were aged below 13 years. The volumes of thelateral ventricles were measured using Tl-weighted MRI images of sagittal sections of the brain to a pre-cision of 3 mm3. External head sizes were also measured to allow ventricle volumes to be normalized. Allpatients underwent complex neuropsychological investigations. Memory was assessed, along with visual,auditory, tactile, and spatial recognition functions and the motor and speech spheres. Test data wereassessed in terms of the severity of impairments associated with one brain structure or another on a ten-point scale. Assessment points were summed for each hemisphere, for the "first area" (cortical structures),and all structures for statistical analysis. Neuropsychological testing revealed functional impairments pre-dominantly of the frontal areas of the hemispheres, the hippocampus, and the reticular formation.Neuropsychological deficits were least linked with alterations in the postcentral and parietal areas of thecortex. Statistical analysis demonstrated a significant positive correlation between the normalized left lat-eral ventricle volume and the degree of neuropsychological impairments (r = 0.5127 at p = 0.0063) for thewhole study group. The correlation was more marked on comparison of the normalized left ventricularvolume and the severity of neuropsychological impairments related to the left hemisphere (r = 0.6303 atp = 0.0004). A relationship was seen between the volume of the intraventricular space and cortical func-tional impairments (r = 0.5071 at p = 0.0069) in patients less than 13 years old. A relationship betweenventricular volume and linear head size was confirmed (r = 0.5759 at p = 0.0017), which was more markedin subjects less than 13 years old (r = 0.6833 at p = 0.01).