A Twin Study of ADHD

*Efficacy of retrospective recall of attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder
symptoms: a twin study.*

Twin Res Hum Genet. 2006 Apr;9(2):220-32

Authors: Schultz MR, Rabi K, Faraone SV, Kremen W, Lyons MJ

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is currently recognized
as a neurobiological, genetically based disorder in both children and
adults. In this article we examine whether, by using a sample of
middle-aged male twin veterans, the phenotypic characterization,
prevalence, heritability and the longitudinal course of the illness is
comparable to results observed in samples of children and adolescents.
We evaluated the utility of adult reports of lifetime ADHD symptoms by
examining the heritability of retrospectively reported childhood
symptoms, using both symptom-based and discrete classification-based
approaches, as well as examining the persistence of ADHD symptoms into
adulthood for that subsample of individuals who were judged to possibly
have ADHD as children. Our results showed prevalence rates that were
approximately similar to those observed in other studies, demonstrable
familiality, similar item endorsement patterns, a strong genetic
association between hyperactive and inattentive subtypes, and a
longitudinal decline in symptom severity. We concluded that
while assessing ADHD in adult probands may be less accurate than with
children or adolescents, since it demonstrates several characteristics
in common with other assessment techniques it remains a viable
diagnostic and research strategy, even with population samples.

PMID: 16611492 [PubMed - in process]