Quantitative MR analysis of caudate abnormalities in pediatric ADHD: proposal for a diagnostic test.
Most morphometric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of pediatric attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with appropriate sample sizes reveal a decreased right caudate nucleus volume. Recently, our group reported that this decrease is mainly due to a diminished right caudate body volume (rCBV). Here, we hypothesize that, employing either the total bilateral caudate volume (tbCV) or the bilateral caudate body volume (bCBV) as scaling variables, the rCBV/tbCV and rCBV/bCBV ratios could be found diminished and used as a basis of an imaging diagnostic test. Volumetric caudate nucleus data were obtained from a case-control morphometric MRI study with 39 ADHD subjects and 39 handedness- and IQ-matched controls, using a novel semi-automated caudate segmentation procedure. Student t-tests comparing each relevant ratio were conducted between the two samples. After splitting the samples into two groups, a receiving operator characteristic (ROC) analysis was conducted on the training group to determine the optimal cut-off. Its performance was then examined on the test group. The rCBV/bCBV ratio was found to be statistically different. For a value equal or inferior to 0.48, the specificity was 95.00%. We propose using the rCBV/bCBV ratio to assist in the diagnosis of ADHD in children.
Soliva
Joan Carles
JC
Unitat de Recerca en Neurociència Cognitiva (URNC), Department of Psychiatry, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain. 24744jsv@comb.es
Fauquet
Jordi
J
Bielsa
Anna
A
Rovira
Mariana
M
Carmona
Susanna
S
Ramos-Quiroga
Josep Antoni
JA
Hilferty
Joseph
J
Bulbena
Antoni
A
Casas
Miquel
M
Vilarroya
Oscar
O
D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002421:Caudate Nucleus / Q000473:pathology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D010372:Pediatrics; D012372:ROC Curve