Holly 's story: illustration of an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder case.

During the last 10years a significant increase of childhood neuopsychiatric disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has been reported. ADHD is believed to have a multifactorial etiology including multiple genetic and prenatal environmental factors. For this reason, there has been a recent revival regarding the role of autoimmunity in this pathology. An ADHD combined-type patientborn from a drug-addicted mother was studied. Neuropsychological tests according to the criteria of the 4° edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DMS4) permitted us to make the ADHD-diagnosis. The HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 alleles of the child were determined by sequence-based typing (STB) after DNA extraction. Although no autistic behavioral features were observed in the patient, a double genetic association between ADHD and autism was reported. In fact, HLA class I alleles (A*02 and B*44) associated to autism and HLA class II allele (DRB1*04) associated both to autism and ADHD were identified.