Abstract summary 

Irritability, inattention, and hyperactivity, which are common presentations of childhood psychopathology, have been associated with perturbed white matter microstructure. However, similar tracts have been implicated across these phenotypes; such non-specificity could be rooted in their high co-occurrence. To address this problem, we use a bifactor approach parsing unique and shared components of irritability, inattention, and hyperactivity, which we then relate to white matter microstructure.We developed a bifactor model based on the Conners Comprehensive Behavioral Rating Scale in a sample of youth with no psychiatric diagnosis or a primary diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (n = 521). We applied the model to an independent yet sociodemographically and clinically comparable sample (n = 152), in which we tested associations between latent variables and fractional anisotropy (FA).The bifactor model fit well (comparative fit index = 0.99; root mean square error of approximation = 0.07). The shared factor was positively associated with an independent measure of impulsivity (r = 0.88, p < .001) and negatively related to whole-brain FA (r = -0.20), as well as FA of the corticospinal tract and the anterior thalamic radiation (all p < .05). FA increased with age and deviation from this curve, indicating that altered white matter maturation was associated with the hyperactivity-specific factor (r = -0.16, p < .05). Inattention-specific and irritability-specific factors were not linked to FA.Perturbed white matter microstructure may represent a shared neurobiological mechanism of irritability, inattention, and hyperactivity related to heightened impulsivity. Furthermore, hyperactivity might be uniquely associated with a delay in white matter maturation.

Authors & Co-authors:  McKay Scheinberg Xu Kircanski Pine Brotman Leibenluft Linke

Study Outcome 

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