Assessing the association between ADHD and brain maturation in late childhood and emotion regulation in early adolescence

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Abstract
A delay in brain maturation is a hypothesized pathomechanism of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Differences in emotion regulation are associated with phenotypic and prognostic heterogeneity in ADHD. The development of emotion regulation is driven, in part, by brain maturation. Whether the difference between an individual’s brain age predicted by machine-learning algorithms trained on neuroimaging data and that individual’s chronological age, i.e. brain-predicted age difference (brain-PAD) predicts differences in emotion regulation, and whether ADHD problems add to this prediction is unknown. Using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, we examined, in 2711 children (M age = 120.09 months, SD = 7.61; 54.15% female; 61.23% white), whether adjusting for action cancellation (inhibition), age, sex assigned at birth, psychotropic treatment, and pubertal status, brain-PAD in late childhood predicts self-reported emotion regulation in early adolescence (at 3-year follow-up), and whether parent-reported ADHD problems predict self-reported emotion regulation above and beyond brain-PAD. Greater brain-PAD predicted greater expressive suppression (b = 0.172, SE = 0.051, p FDR = 0.004), whereas ADHD problems did not (b = 0.041, SE = 0.022, p FDR = 0.124), model marginal R 2 = 0.020. This pattern of results was replicated across sensitivity tests. Neither brain-PAD, nor ADHD problems predicted cognitive reappraisal, p FDRs = 0.734. Clinically, consistent with earlier findings linking greater brain-PAD to psychopathology, we observed that greater brain-PAD in childhood—but not ADHD problems—predicted expressive suppression in early adolescence. Expressive suppression is implicated in the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of numerous psychopathologies, highlighting the relevance of brain-PAD in understanding developmental risk mechanisms. Conceptually, these findings further validate brain-PAD as a valuable tool for advancing developmental neuroscience.
Funding Information
  • Magyar Tudományos Akadémia (HAS-ELRN NAP2022-I-2/2022, HAS-ELRN NAP2022-I-2/2022, János Bolyai Research Scholarship)

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