[porpoisemonkey]

There are already treatments like this.

When I was in high school I started a minor computer repair business. One of my customers was a treatment service where they would place electrodes on the head of an individual to measure certain brainwave activity. The electrodes were connected through a device back to a laptop which was playing a video.

I'm explaining it very imprecisely (I'm an expert by no means) but the way it worked is that the video would only play when the measured brainwaves met the pattern(s) established for concentration. The idea being that the person would want the video to play continuously (without pausing or chopping) so badly that their brain would train itself to enter into the "concentrating" brainwave pattern.

I'm not sure what the efficacy of the solution is but the idea was interesting at the time.

UPDATE: Just looked it up and the term they use for this is "neurofeedback" training.

Looks like there are significant criticisms to the approach and study of this treatment so maybe it isn't a viable approach after all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback

[andai]

Neurofeedback isn't quite the same thing as neuro-stimulation. Neurofeedback just encourages (through positive feedback) the brain to stimulate itself :)

I've been practicing meditation for a few years and it has slowly but steadily improved my ability to concentrate. (Also worth mentioning that witnessing emotions as a field of sensation allows them to "dissolve" instead of getting stuck, and has helped me overcome various addictions and roadblocks.)

Meditation was shown to develop the prefrontal cortex (involved in decision-making, working memory, inhibition, emotional regulation..), which is (are) underdeveloped in people with ADHD.

I'm wondering how this kind of independent, willpower based practice compares with the constant external feedback of neurofeedback training, seeing as one of the main deficits in ADHD is self-motivation. My guess is that a combination might be most effective: train the concentrated state itself to make it more accessible, and then train the will (habit) to access it.

Or put another way, make use of both internal and external technology :)

[trevyn]

There are certainly criticisms, grains of salt, and hucksterism involved, but I think it would be premature to entirely dismiss neurofeedback. Importantly, there is not “one kind” of neurofeedback, and the specific EEG patterns to optimize for is open to debate.

Douglas Dailey has some interesting hypotheses and an excellent list of references for further investigation: https://tagsync.com/