Common and Distinct Neural Patterns of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder: A Multimodal Functional and Structural Meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) have partially overlapping symptom profiles and are highly comorbid in adults. However, whether the behavioral similarities correspond to shared neurobiological substrates is not known.

METHODS

An overlapping meta-analysis of 58 ADHD and 66 BPD whole-brain articles incorporating observations from 3401 adult patients and 3238 healthy participants was performed by seed-based d mapping. Brain maps were subjected to meta-analytic connectivity modeling and data-driven functional decoding analyses to identify associated neural circuit alterations and relations to behavioral dimensions.

RESULTS

Both groups exhibited hypoactivated abnormalities in the left inferior parietal lobule, and altered clusters of the bilateral superior temporal gyrus were disjunctive in ADHD and BPD. No overlapping structural abnormalities were found. Multimodal alterations of ADHD were located in the right putamen and of BPD in the left orbitofrontal cortex.

CONCLUSIONS

The transdiagnostic neural bases of ADHD and BPD in temporoparietal circuitry may underlie overlapping problems of behavioral control, while disorder-specific substrates in frontostriatal circuitry may account for their distinguishing features in motor and emotion domains, respectively.