Landmark finding that showed brains of kids with ADHD mature later was actually a mirage in the data, new research finds
Yahoo • • health
Key Points:
- A landmark 2007 study suggested that children with ADHD have delayed brain maturation, particularly in cortical thickness development, compared to children without ADHD.
- New research using a larger dataset from the ABCD study found that previous findings were likely influenced by sex differences in brain development between boys and girls, not ADHD itself.
- When accounting for these sex-based developmental differences, no significant relationship was found between cortical thickness and attention problems in either boys or girls.
- The study highlights the importance of considering sex as a factor in neuroscience research and contributes to the ongoing replication crisis by challenging earlier conclusions about ADHD brain development.
- Despite these findings, experts emphasize that ADHD remains a biological condition with a genetic basis, but reliable brain-based markers for diagnosis and treatment are still lacking.