Brain Scans May Help Identify Bipolar, ADHD Kids: Study

October 18, 2010

Accurate diagnosis could lead to more targeted treatments, researchers say

HealthDay/ScoutNews LLC

FRIDAY, Oct. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Using brain imaging to look at how working

memory is influenced by emotions may help identify which children have bipolar

disorder and which have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),

researchers suggest.

It is difficult for doctors to differentiate between the two disorders based on

behavioral measures alone, but the new finding may help in efforts to develop

diagnostic tests based on both neurological and behavioral markers, the

University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) researchers said.

The investigators used functional MRI to observe brain activity in 23 children

with bipolar disorder, 14 children with ADHD and 19 children without either

disorder (controls) as they did a memory task while viewing faces with different

emotions. The children were aged 10 to 18. Those with bipolar disorder and ADHD

were not taking medications, the study authors noted.

Compared to the children in the control group, those with bipolar disorder and

ADHD showed dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex, which controls behavior (such

as impulsivity), executive function, working memory, attention and language,

according to the report in the October issue of the Journal of the American

Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Children with ADHD had the most severe dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex, but

those with bipolar disorder had more deficits in brain areas involved in emotion

processing and regulation, the researchers found.

" Our hope is that by better differentiating between these two severe

developmental illnesses, we can help develop more accurate diagnoses and more

targeted treatments for [bipolar disorder] and ADHD, " Alessandra Passarotti,

assistant professor of psychiatry at UIC and lead author of the study, said in a

university news release.

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