Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
NEW RESEARCHDopamine Transporter Genotype Conveys Familial Risk of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Through Striatal Activation
Section snippets
Subjects
A total of 29 boys, ages 11 to 20 years, participated in the present study. Sibling pairs were recruited through the University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands, whereas controls were recruited through schools in the area. All of the assessments and study participation were conducted in Dutch. All of the fMRI data included in this report were also included in a study of effects of familial risk of ADHD on brain activation patterns.18 The present study investigates genotype effects,
RESULTS
There was no effect of genotype or diagnosis on behavioral performance, nor was there an interaction between the two (F < 1.9; df = 2, 23; p >.18; n = 29).
The planned comparison of whole-brain activation for no-go trials compared to go-trials between carriers of the DAT1 9R allele (n = 13) and individuals homozygous for the 10R allele (n = 16) showed two areas that were different between groups: Activation in the striatum was greater for carriers of the 9R allele (t = 3.93, df = 28; p <.001),
DISCUSSION
We report effects of the DAT1 genotype on activation in the striatum and the vermis of the cerebellum in a small sample of subjects with ADHD and their unaffected siblings. This is consistent with previous reports of MPH effects in these regions and the pattern of DAT1 expression in the brain. We show an interaction between genotype and familial risk of ADHD for activation in the striatum, but not the cerebellar vermis. These findings should be considered preliminary given the small sample
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This work was supported by a Dutch Science Foundation VENI grant to Dr. Durston. The authors gratefully acknowledge all of the families who participated in this study; Nick Ramsey, Arjan van der Schaaf, and Bert Heesakkers for technical support; Bas Neggers, Erno Hermans, Matthijs Vink, and Martijn van der Heuvel for SPM2 support; and the clinical team at the Disruptive Disorders Clinic for their help in subject recruitment.
Clinical trial registration information-URL:http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00143832.
Disclosure: The authors report no conflicts of interest