# Brain trajectories in ADHD

> **NIH NIH R01** · OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $729,983

## Abstract

Project Summary
ADHD has long been believed to include brain-based pathophysiology, but the newest approaches to
describing atypical brain organization in ADHD are thus far limited to cross-sectional studies. The current
project aims at the crucial question of the neurobiological correlates of change in ADHD during adolescence. In
adolescence, ADHD outcomes begin to diverge in important ways that are poorly explained. Understanding the
neurobiological basis of those clinical changes would provide a major step forward in clinical understanding. At
the same time, in adolescence the dynamics of functional brain development are non-linear and distinct from
those processes in childhood, suggesting a deeper focus on that age period. Building on a conceptual
framework that integrates cognitive and emotional circuitries in the brain, the present study has the following
principal objectives. First, it seeks to discover how distinct types of brain organization within the ADHD
population predict in ADHD course during adolescence. Second, it seeks to track variations in the development
of cross-network brain organization within the ADHD population in relation to divergent clinical development
during the adolescent period. Third, it seeks to evaluate prospects for developmental brain-based “neurotypes”
in ADHD. The significance of this effort lies both in its unprecedented ability to characterize ADHD
neurobiology over time with methods of brain characterization that have not been examined in ADHD
longitudinally in this way before, and in its effort to move brain imaging into the realm of clinical prediction using
a longitudinal design. The project is innovative in regard to implementing network and topology features of
brain analysis in a multi-wave design, identifying brain-based typologies of ADHD (neurobiological
heterogeneity), and linking these to clinical course. The approach entails tracking of an already developed
cohort of 376 children in a cross-lagged longitudinal design, enabling characterization of development from age
7-19 years. Brain organization will be operationalized with diffusion tensor imaging and resting state functional
connectivity, while standard structural metrics will also be available. Youth will be characterized annually in
relation to clinical symptoms, comorbidity, impairment, cognitive functioning, reward discounting, and emotion
regulation and functioning. Analytic approaches will span brain circuit, network, and topological measurements
using novel graph theoretical analyses to characterize brain systems. Clinical typologies will be evaluated
using community detection procedures and more standard mixture model analysis of brain features. Latent
class trajectory models will be used to explore distinct developmental types of ADHD if they exist. The Aims
directly match key priorities of the NIMH strategic plan. If successful, the project hopes to break the impasse
facing the field with regard to clinical utility of the growing...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9971594
- **Project number:** 5R01MH115357-04
- **Recipient organization:** OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Damien A Fair
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $729,983
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-12 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9971594

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9971594, Brain trajectories in ADHD (5R01MH115357-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9971594. Licensed CC0.

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