Individualised Structural and Functional Frontostriatal Connectivity Mapping in Adult ADHD.

Authors

Tuija Tolonen, Matti Laine, Kimmo Alho, Sami Leppämäki, Pekka Tani, Anniina Koski, Juha Salmi, Timo Roine

Published in

Human brain mapping. Volume 47. Issue 14. Pages e70652. Oct 01, 2026.

Abstract

Abundant research from early neurocognitive models to recent mega-analyses has highlighted the central role of frontostriatal circuits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, it remains unclear which specific aspects of functionally organised frontostriatal loops are affected by ADHD and how these disruptions differ across individuals in light of the disorder's marked heterogeneity. We investigated frontostriatal connectivity in individualised circuits in 40 adults with ADHD and 36 neurotypical controls using a multimodal dataset that included diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as functional MRI during working memory updating, resting state, and a naturalistic attention task. Compared with the neurotypical controls, the adults with ADHD exhibited reduced structural connectivity strength in a tract originating from left orbital prefrontal areas. However, structural results did not reproduce in control analyses using different thresholds in individual formation of regions of interest. Functional data revealed weaker connectivity in the ADHD group during verbal and visuospatial working memory tasks in circuits connecting the striatum with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, motor regions, and orbitofrontal cortex, while no group differences were found during resting state or the naturalistic task. Comparisons with atlas-based analyses highlighted the precision of individualised connectivity mapping. Together, these findings suggest that frontostriatal functional connectivity aberrancies in ADHD are driven by striatum-dependent cognitive processes such as working memory, and that precise mapping of frontostriatal pathways can be achieved through individualised connectivity mapping.

PMID:
42823824
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Oct 2026.

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