Brief ReportFurther Evidence of Dopamine Transporter Dysregulation in ADHD: A Controlled PET Imaging Study Using Altropane
Section snippets
Subjects
Subjects consisted of 47 volunteers between 18 and 55 years of age. The subjects with ADHD had to satisfy full diagnostic criteria for DSM-IV ADHD (Biederman et al. 1993). Control subjects could have at most two mild symptoms of ADHD and no family history of ADHD. We excluded potential subjects if they had clinically significant chronic medical conditions, abnormal baseline laboratory values, IQ <80, Axis I psychiatric conditions, drug or alcohol abuse or dependence, previous exposure to
Results
Although subjects with and without ADHD had similar sociodemographic characteristics, ADHD subjects were somewhat older than the control subjects (p < .01) (Table 1). Thus, subsequent analyses are corrected for age.
In multivariate analyses including both diagnoses and age, DAT binding was statistically significantly different between diagnostic groups only in the right caudate (t = 2,77, df = 45, p = .008). Before age correction, right caudate DAT binding was not statistically different (3.2 ±
Discussion
This study used a highly selective radioactive ligand (11C-altropane) and PET to examine DAT binding in the striatum in a large sample of well-characterized adults with and without ADHD. Results showed significantly increased DAT binding in the right caudate in adults with ADHD compared with matched control subjects without the disorder. These results provide further support that dysregulation of DAT may be an important component of the pathophysiology of ADHD.
This study has some noteworthy
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