ADHD exists in this odd diagnostic liminal space where we know it’s a thing, but it’s hard to definitively pinpoint it in the physical structures of the brain. MRI studies have given us mixed signals over the years. Some say kids with smaller gray matter volumes in their brains are more likely to develop ADHD, while other researchers claim the exact opposite. But a group of Japanese researchers might finally be providing some cold, hard evidence.A group of researchers led by Chiba University, [publishing their findings in Molecular Psychiatry], provided some clarity using something called the Traveling-Subject method, or TS for short. The idea is that not all MRI machines are created equal. The ones used in hospitals are different than the ones used in research labs. Different calibrations, different kinds of coils, different software, different quirks that only people with tons of experience on a specific machine know how to work around or use to their advantage.When researchers combine data from different sources that all used different MRI machines and all the factors that influence those specific machines’ quirks and nuances, the results get distorted.There have been previous attempts to fix this. There is the “ComBat” method, which uses statistics to unskew the results, but it tends to overcorrect and delete real, valuable biological signals along with the useless noise. It tends to throw the baby out with the bathwater.Using the TS method, which standardizes scans across the board, the team scanned the same 14 people across four MRI machines over three months. Since their brains didn’t change, any differences in the scans were purely from the machines themselves. That gave researchers a reliable baseline for comparison—and a much clearer picture when analyzing data from over 290 kids, both with and without ADHD.They found that ADHD brains are structurally different. Specifically, kids with ADHD had smaller volumes in frontotemporal regions, the parts of the brain in charge of attention, emotion, decision-making, and executive function — all the stuff ADHD messes with.As usual, this is the part where I tell you that this study, like nearly every study ever, has its caveats. Researchers admit that the study mostly focused on kids from a few specific geographical regions, and it could’ve focused on a wider breadth of subjects than children.But even with those limitations, the findings still offer measurable, biological proof that ADHD has a tangible, structural, neurological basis. It’s not just apparent in our attention spans and ability to retain information. It’s apparent in the physical makeup of our brains.Maybe now we can stop pretending ADHD kids and adults just need to “try harder.”The post Do ADHD Brains Look Different? Science Is Starting to Say Yes. appeared first on VICE.