Default mode network activity and neuropsychological profile in male children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder

It is known that patients with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Conduct disorder (CD) commonly shows greater symptom severity than those with ADHD alone and worse outcomes. This study researches whether Default mode network (DMN) is altered in adolescents with ADHD + CD, relative to ADHD alone and controls or not. Ten medication-naive boys with ADHD + CD, ten medication-naive boys with ADHD and 10-age-matched typically developing (TD) controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans in the resting state and neuropsychological tasks such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Stroop Test TBAG Form (STP), Auditory Verbal learning Test (AVLT), Visual Auditory Digit Span B (VADS B) were applied to all the subjects included. fMRI scans can be used only nine patients in each groups. The findings revealed group differences between cingulate cortex and primary mortor cortex; cingulate cortex and somatosensory association cortex; angular gyrus (AG) and dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, in these networks increased activity was observed in participants with ADHD + CD compared with the ADHD. We found that lower resting state (rs)-activity was observed between left AG and dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, whereas higher rs-activity connectivity were detected between right AG and somatosensory association cortex in ADHD relative to the ones with ADHD + CD. In neuropsyhcological tasks, ADHD + CD group showed poor performance in WISC-R, WCST, Stroop, AVLT tasks compared to TDs. The ADHD + CD group displayed rs-functional abnormalities in DMN. Our results suggest that abnormalities in the intrinsic activity of resting state networks may contribute to the etiology of CD and poor prognosis of ADHD + CD.