Biochemistry of ADHD - dopamine

Professor Philip Shaw links an association between ADHD and dopamine receptors, which may relate to brain development.

The risk variation of the dopamine D4 receptor has in some studies been shown to make the receptor a little bit less sensitive to dopamine in the brain. Now how that would translate into changes in the brain cortex we don’t know yet, but it’s not inconceivable that it does. So there does seem to be a physiological difference of this genetic variation, which is very interesting, and the work now remains linking that to how the cortex develops. We know, for example, from other studies, that dopamine fluxes in the brain and dopamine regulation in the brain is very much intimately associated with how the cortex develops. So, it would certainly not be inconceivable to link the two together in the future.