Abnormal Dynamic Community Structure of Patients with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the Resting State

Some static network studies have suggested that the community structure in the brains of ADHD patients is altered. However, ADHD is now increasingly regarded as a disorder of neural dynamics, but the dynamic reconstruction of brain communities in ADHD patients is far from being understood.

Forty-two ADHD patients and fifty healthy controls participated in this study. We constructed a multilayer network model and calculated several metrics for quantifying community reconstruction at different levels. Results: Regardless of the level of research, the flexibility and cohesion of the ADHD patients were significantly higher than those of controls. In addition, the frontal lobe of ADHD patients presented a phenomenon of increasing peripheral areas and decreasing core areas.

Our results indicate that ADHD patients do have abnormalities in dynamic community structure. These evidences provide a new perspective that advances the present understanding of the dynamic organizational principles of communities in ADHD.