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Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments

Methylphenidate (MPH) is the most commonly used drug to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children effectively and safely. In spite of its widespread application throughout one of the most plastic and sensitive phases of brain development, very little is known to date about it...

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Autores principales: Grund, Thorsten, Lehmann, Konrad, Bock, Nathalie, Rothenberger, Aribert, Teuchert-Noodt, Gertraud
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1363724/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16403217
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-2-2
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author Grund, Thorsten
Lehmann, Konrad
Bock, Nathalie
Rothenberger, Aribert
Teuchert-Noodt, Gertraud
author_facet Grund, Thorsten
Lehmann, Konrad
Bock, Nathalie
Rothenberger, Aribert
Teuchert-Noodt, Gertraud
author_sort Grund, Thorsten
collection PubMed
description Methylphenidate (MPH) is the most commonly used drug to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children effectively and safely. In spite of its widespread application throughout one of the most plastic and sensitive phases of brain development, very little is known to date about its long-term effects on brain structure and function. Hence, this short review updates the influence of MPH on brain development, since recent human and animal studies suggest that MPH alters the dopaminergic system with long-term effects beyond the termination of treatment. Animal studies imply that the effects of MPH may depend on the neural responder system: Whereas structural and functional parameters are improved by MPH in animals with psychomotor impairments, they remain unaltered or get worse in healthy controls. While recent behavioural studies do not fully support such a differential effect of MPH in ADHD, the animal studies certainly prompt for further investigation of this issue. Furthermore, the abuse of MPH, when (rarely) intravenously applied, may even impair the maturation of dopaminergic fibres in subcortical brain areas. This argues for careful clinical assessment and diagnostics of ADHD symptomatology not only in conjunction with the prescription of MPH. Hence, one should be assured that MPH is only given to children with clear ADHD symptomatology leading to psychosocial impairment. The animal data suggest that under these conditions MPH is supportive for brain development and the related behaviour in children with ADHD.
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spelling pubmed-13637242006-02-11 Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments Grund, Thorsten Lehmann, Konrad Bock, Nathalie Rothenberger, Aribert Teuchert-Noodt, Gertraud Behav Brain Funct Review Methylphenidate (MPH) is the most commonly used drug to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children effectively and safely. In spite of its widespread application throughout one of the most plastic and sensitive phases of brain development, very little is known to date about its long-term effects on brain structure and function. Hence, this short review updates the influence of MPH on brain development, since recent human and animal studies suggest that MPH alters the dopaminergic system with long-term effects beyond the termination of treatment. Animal studies imply that the effects of MPH may depend on the neural responder system: Whereas structural and functional parameters are improved by MPH in animals with psychomotor impairments, they remain unaltered or get worse in healthy controls. While recent behavioural studies do not fully support such a differential effect of MPH in ADHD, the animal studies certainly prompt for further investigation of this issue. Furthermore, the abuse of MPH, when (rarely) intravenously applied, may even impair the maturation of dopaminergic fibres in subcortical brain areas. This argues for careful clinical assessment and diagnostics of ADHD symptomatology not only in conjunction with the prescription of MPH. Hence, one should be assured that MPH is only given to children with clear ADHD symptomatology leading to psychosocial impairment. The animal data suggest that under these conditions MPH is supportive for brain development and the related behaviour in children with ADHD. BioMed Central 2006-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC1363724/ /pubmed/16403217 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-2-2 Text en Copyright © 2006 Grund et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Grund, Thorsten
Lehmann, Konrad
Bock, Nathalie
Rothenberger, Aribert
Teuchert-Noodt, Gertraud
Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
title Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
title_full Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
title_fullStr Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
title_full_unstemmed Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
title_short Influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
title_sort influence of methylphenidate on brain development – an update of recent animal experiments
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1363724/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16403217
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-2-2
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