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 While behaviour differs from child to child, in most
cases it is easy to understand. However, in the UK alone, there are
some 150,000 children who suffer from severe Attention Deficit and
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and their behaviour is not only hard
to handle but can badly disrupt their lives.
Researchers at King’s College London’s Institute of
Psychiatry have been using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or
fMRI to compare the brain activity of children with ADHD and those
without it.
In the first study of children with ADHD who have never taken
medication for their condition, which could itself
have altered the children's brain activity or architecture, the
researchers discovered that ADHD sufferers had less activity in the
right frontal lobe of their brains than those without the
disorder.
The area of the brain that is less active in children with ADHD
is part of an ‘Attention network’. This network is
activated by people without the disorder in order to concentrate or
control themselves. The particular brain region seen to be
underactive in people with ADHD normally grows and becomes more
active with age. However, in children with ADHD it does not seem to
mature so quickly.
Identifying the precise areas of the brain that are affected
will greatly assist in finding ways to treat ADHD, and also show
sufferers that there is a specific physiological cause for their
problems.
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