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What do you think ADHD is? You say it's "definitely not some kind of genetic defect of the prefrontal cortex or anything of that sort," but there's been growing evidence of exactly that for a long time now: > New high-resolution, three-dimensional maps of the brains of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) indicate significant and specific anatomical differences within areas of the brain thought to control attentional and inhibitory control systems, compared with brain scans of children without ADHD... The reductions in size of prefrontal regions observed by Sowell and her colleagues are consistent with other reports of reduced frontal lobe volumes in children with ADHD. The more advanced imaging methods and analysis used in the current study, however, suggest that those reductions are localized to more inferior aspects of the prefrontal regions than was previously realized.[1] > In instances where heredity does not seem to be a factor, difficulties during pregnancy, prenatal exposure to alcohol and tobacco, premature delivery, significantly low birth weight, excessively high body lead levels, and postnatal injury to the prefrontal regions of the brain have all been found to contribute to the risk for ADHD to varying degrees.[2] > Recently, neuroimaging has led to several important advances in the understanding of the neurobiology underlying the clinical picture of ADHD, and demonstrates a clear brain basis to the disorder in regions involved in attention, and executive and inhibitory control. Furthermore, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has provided evidence that intracortical inhibition, as indexed by the immature ipsilateral motor cortex, normalises with psychostimulant treatment. There is an exciting confluence between emerging studies in basic neurobiology and the genetic, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological analyses of ADHD.[3] [1] https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.39.1.0... [2] http://www.chadd.org/understanding-adhd/about-adhd/the-scien... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016271/ |