Carucci Sara, Narducci Chiara, Bazzoni Marzia, Balia Carla, Donno Federica, Gagliano Antonella, Zuddas Alessandro
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Section of Neuroscience & Clinical Pharmacology, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
Child & Adolescent Neuropsychiatry Unit, "A.Cao" Paediatric Hospital, Cagliari, Italy.
J Neurosci Res. 2023 May;101(5):704-717. doi: 10.1002/jnr.25038. Epub 2022 Mar 15.
Recent clinical studies, in both children/adolescents and adults, have shown the extreme neuropsychological heterogeneity of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): specific neuropsychological deficits have been found only in a minority of individuals, with no direct correlation between discrete cognitive performances and the trajectory of clinical symptoms. Deficits in specific neuropsychological functions may be common in ADHD, but nevertheless no cognitive or neuropsychological profile may fully explain the disorder. Sex differences in the ADHD presentation, both at a neuropsychological and clinical level, also contribute to this clinical and neuropsychological heterogeneity. At a neuropsychological level, females with ADHD may show greater working memory problems, poorer vocabulary skills and worse visual spatial reasoning. Structural and functional imaging study also show discrete differences across sex; however, the great majority of clinical studies mainly or exclusively include male participants with insufficient data to draw firm conclusions on sex differences within the disorder. Here, we report the recent literature data, discussing still open research questions about the clinical presentation, neuroimaging findings, and neuropsychological functioning in ADHD with a focus on the impact of sex differences-a deeper insight in these unresolved issues may have relevant clinical and therapeutic implications for tailored, effective, and long-lasting interventions.
近期针对儿童/青少年和成人的临床研究表明,注意力缺陷多动障碍(ADHD)在神经心理学方面存在极大的异质性:仅在少数个体中发现了特定的神经心理学缺陷,离散的认知表现与临床症状轨迹之间没有直接关联。特定神经心理学功能的缺陷在ADHD中可能很常见,但没有任何认知或神经心理学特征能够完全解释该疾病。ADHD在神经心理学和临床层面的表现存在性别差异,这也导致了这种临床和神经心理学上的异质性。在神经心理学层面,患有ADHD的女性可能存在更严重的工作记忆问题、更差的词汇技能和更弱的视觉空间推理能力。结构和功能成像研究也显示了性别之间的离散差异;然而,绝大多数临床研究主要或仅纳入男性参与者,缺乏足够数据来就该疾病中的性别差异得出确凿结论。在此,我们报告近期的文献数据,讨论关于ADHD临床表现、神经影像学发现和神经心理学功能方面仍未解决的研究问题,重点关注性别差异的影响——对这些未解决问题的更深入洞察可能对量身定制、有效且持久的干预措施具有相关的临床和治疗意义。