3D Brain SPECT Helps Diagnose ADHD

COSTA MESA, Calif., Dec. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A recently published study from Toronto, Canada found that patients who utilized 3D SPECT were able to get a clearer diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is the most common psychiatric disorder in children and adults.

Published in the [i]Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, the study used 3D SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging, a nuclear medicine study that evaluates blood flow and activity levels in the brain. This research demonstrated that 3D SPECT imaging is a beneficial tool for ruling in or ruling out ADHD.

This study is especially important because of the unique way the SPECT scans were rendered.  The 3D renderings made the scans easier to read than the typical 2D images, which required greater reading skills of the physicians.  In the present study, 3D thresholded SPECT scans gave a sensitivity of 83% in predicting which patients would have a clinical diagnosis of ADHD compared with a sensitivity of 10% for the conventional 2D SPECT scans. A 10% sensitivity hardly makes SPECT scans useful for clinical psychiatric applications, which is why some researchers have criticized the use of traditional SPECT. The authors wrote, "Our findings suggest that, for ADHD, and by inference for other psychiatric disorders, a much stronger signal is obtained when the 3D thresholded SPECT scan is performed rather than the conventional SPECT scan.

Daniel G. Amen, MD, psychiatrist and founder of Amen Clinics, who is referenced in the published article but did not participate in this particular study, says, "This study points to a significant advancement in the care of people who suffer with ADHD and other psychiatric disorders.  Until now, standard diagnoses in psychiatry are made primarily through talking to patients and looking at symptom clusters without any biological information. Psychiatry is the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats.  This study is a major step forward." 

[i] http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.12110280

Dr. Amen is a double-board certified psychiatrist, brain-imaging expert,  and nine-time New York Times bestselling author.  He is the founder of Amen Clinics, Inc. Amen Clinics have the world's largest database of functional brain scans relating to the brain and behavior, totaling nearly 90,000 scans on patients from over 111 countries.

CONTACT:
Kaitlyn Brumleu
Amen Clinics
949-274-3530
[email protected]

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SOURCE Amen Clinics, Inc.

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