Basal ganglia regions like the right globus pallidus, the right putamen, and the nucleus caudatus are structurally affected in children with ADHD. These changes and alterations in limbic regions like ACC and amygdala are more pronounced in non-treated populations and seem to diminish over time from child to adulthood. Treatment seems to have positive effects on brain structure.

Sunovian. He is/has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Lilly & Shire. The present work is unrelated to the above grants and relationships. Jonna Kuntsi has given talks at educational events sponsored by Medice; all funds are received by King's College London and used for studies of ADHD. Theo Van Erp consulted for Roche Pharmaceuticals and has a contract with Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Ltd. Anders Dale is a Founder of CorTechs Labs, Inc. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of CorTechs Labs and Human Longevity, Inc., and receives research funding through a Research Agreement with General Electric Healhcare. Paulo Mattos was on the speakers' bureau and/or acted as consultant for Janssen-Cilag, Novartis, and Shire in the previous five years; he also received travel awards to participate in scientific meetings from those companies. The ADHD outpatient program (Grupo de Estudos do Déficit de Atenção/Institute of Psychiatry) chaired by Dr. Mattos has also received research support from Novartis and Shire.The funding sources had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data; or preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. Tobias Banaschewski served in an advisory or consultancy role for Actelion,

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The neurobiological underpinnings of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and particularly those associated with the persistence of ADHD into adulthood are not yet well understood. The correlation patterns in spontaneous neural fluctuations at rest are known as resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and could characterize ADHD-specific connectivity changes. OBJECTIVE To determine the specific location of possible ADHD-related differences in RSFC between adults diagnosed as having ADHD in childhood and control subjects. DESIGN Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, we calculated and compared functional connectivity from attention, affective, default, and cognitive control networks involved in the psychopathology of ADHD between the ADHD and control groups. SETTING University psychiatric service and magnetic resonance imaging research center. PARTICIPANTS Sixteen drug-free adults (5 women and 11 men; mean age, 24.5 years) diagnosed with combined-type ADHD in childhood and 16 healthy controls matched for age (mean age, 24.4 years), sex, handedness, and educational level recruited from the community. INTERVENTION Functional magnetic resonance imaging. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Connectivity data from ventral and dorsal attention, affective, default, and cognitive control networks and ADHD symptoms derived from ADHD-specific rating instruments. RESULTS Adults with ADHD showed significantly decreased RSFC within the attention networks and increased RSFC within the affective and default mode and the right lateralized cognitive control networks compared with healthy controls (P < .01, familywise error for whole-brain cluster correction). Lower RSFC in the ventral and dorsal attention network was significantly correlated with higher levels of ADHD symptoms (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE These RSFC findings might underpin a biological basis for adult ADHD and are functionally related to persistent inattention, disturbance in cognitive control, and emotional dysregulation in adults with ADHD. These findings need to be understood in the context of all aspects of brain function in ADHD.