EEG Abnormalities In ADHD: How Should We Treat?

Copyright: © 2013 Kanemura H, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Prevailing opinion characterizes ADHD as a disorder of executive function attributable to abnormal dopamine transmission in the frontal lobes and frontostriatal circuitry. Thus, ADHD can be characterized by frontal lobe dysfunction. The onset of paroxysmal electrical activity was closely related in time with the development of a neuropsychological and behavioral pattern characterized by inattention, impulsiveness, mood swings and perseveration, with deficits in time orientation, reasoning and learning strategies, which shared many features with adult frontal syndrome [18]. In ADHD with EEG abnormalities, paroxysmal activity affects the frontal area and results in those impairments. Damage to the prefrontal cortex has been associated with an inability to organize and carry out goal-directed behaviors. In our previous 3-dimensional MRI volumetric studies, frontal and prefrontal lobe volumes revealed growth disturbance in epilepsy patients with frontal lobe dysfunction compared with those of normal subjects [19,20]. Moreover, in the patients with shorter seizure durations and EEG abnormalities periods, ratios were soon restored to a more normal growth ratio, whereas growth disturbances of the prefrontal lobes were persistent in the patients with longer seizure durations and EEG abnormalities periods. These findings suggest that the duration of EEG paroxysmal anomalies may be associated with prefrontal lobe growth, which is associated with neuropsychological problems. Damage to the frontal regions during childhood may interrupt normal maturational processes and organization, resulting in impairments to neurobehavioral development. Integrative executive functions may thus rely on the health of frontal lobe tissue and connectivity with the rest of the cortex [21].