Posted on 10/09/2002 5:18:37 PM PDT by blam
Hyperactive children have smaller brain
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 09/10/2002)
Hyperactive children have smaller brains than other children, according to research published today.
A 10-year study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder found that their brains developed normally but were around three per cent smaller than average.
The differences were not caused by drugs, such as ritalin, used to treat the condition, the researchers found.
Dr Xavier Castellanos, a child psychiatrist at New York University school of medicine who led the research, said: "Our study should provide a certain amount of reassurance to parents that medications are not reducing brain size in children with the disorder.
"Parents should not be so concerned about the slight difference in brain volume anyway, since this measurement does not have much meaning."
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, used magnetic resonance imaging to study the brain volume of 152 children and adolescents with the disorder and 139 without it.
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