Functional Connectivity based Brain Signatures of Behavioral Regulation in Children with ADHD, DCD and ADHD-DCD

ABSTRACT Background Children with neurodevelopmental disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often struggle with behavioral self-regulation (BR), which is associated with daily-life challenges. ADHD sometimes presents with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), but little is known about BR in DCD. BR is thought to involve limbic, prefrontal, parietal and temporal brain areas. Given the risk for negative outcomes, gaining a better understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying BR in children with ADHD and/or DCD is imperative. Methods Resting-state fMRI data collected from 115 children (31 typically developing (TD), 35 ADHD, 21 DCD, 28 ADHD-DCD) aged 7-17 years were preprocessed and motion was mitigated using ICA-AROMA. Emotion control, inhibition, and shifting were assessed as subdomains of BR. Functional connectivity (FC) maps were computed for ten limbic, prefrontal, parietal and temporal regions of interest and were investigated for associations with BR subdomains across all participants as well as for significant group differences. Results Multiple FC patterns were associated with BR across all participants. Some FC patterns were associated with multiple BR subdomains, while others were associated with only one. Differences in BR were found only between children with ADHD (i.e. ADHD and ADHD-DCD) and those without ADHD (i.e. TD and DCD). FC differences were also found between children with and without ADHD. Conclusions Our results show dimensional associations between BR subdomain scores and whole-brain FC and highlight the potential of these associative patterns as brain-based signatures of BR in children with and without ADHD.