attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

▪ pathology

Introduction

      a behavioral syndrome characterized by inattention and distractibility, restlessness, inability to sit still, and difficulty concentrating on one thing for any period of time. ADHD most commonly occurs in children (childhood disease and disorder), though an increasing number of adults are being diagnosed with the disorder. ADHD is three times more common in males than in females and occurs in approximately 3 to 6 percent of all children. Although behaviours characteristic of the syndrome are evident in all cultures, they have garnered the most attention in the United States, where ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder.

      It was not until the mid-1950s that American physicians began to classify as “mentally deficient” individuals who had difficulty paying attention on demand. Various terms were coined to describe this behaviour, among them minimal brain damage and hyperkinesis. In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) replaced these terms with attention deficit disorder (ADD). Then in 1987 the APA linked ADD with hyperactivity, a condition that sometimes accompanies attention disorders but may exist independently. The new syndrome was named attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

Symptoms

      ADHD does not have easily recognizable symptoms or definitive diagnostic tests. Children and adults are diagnosed with ADHD if they persistently show a combination of traits including, among others, forgetfulness, distractibility, fidgeting, restlessness, impatience, difficulty sustaining attention in work, play, or conversation, or difficulty following instructions and completing tasks. According to criteria issued by the APA, at least six of these traits must be present “to a degree that is maladaptive,” and these behaviours must cause “impairment” in two or more settings—e.g., at school, work, or at home. Inattention predominates in some cases, hyperactivity in others, and in a combined type of ADHD the two are present together. Studies have shown that more than a quarter of children with ADHD are held back a grade in school, and a third fail to graduate from high school. The learning difficulties associated with ADHD, however, should not be confused with a deficient intelligence.

Treatment

      The most common medication used to treat ADHD is methylphenidate (Ritalin) (Ritalin™), a mild form of amphetamine. Amphetamines (amphetamine) increase the amount and activity of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine (nonadrenaline) in the brain. Although such drugs act as a stimulant in most people, they have the paradoxical effect of calming, focusing, or “slowing down” people with ADHD. Ritalin was developed in 1955, and the number of children with ADHD taking this and related medications has increased steadily ever since. Between 1990 and 1996 alone, the number of American children regularly taking Ritalin grew from 500,000 to 1,300,000, according to one study. Another study found that Ritalin prescriptions for adults rose from 217,000 in 1992 to 729,000 in 1997. The fact that many people diagnosed with ADHD experience fewer problems once they start taking stimulants such as Ritalin may confirm a neurological basis for the condition. Ritalin and similar medications help people with ADHD to concentrate better, which helps them get more work done and, in turn, reduces frustration and increases self-confidence.

Causes

      The cause of ADHD is not known and may be a combination of both inherited and environmental factors. Many theories regarding causation have been abandoned for lack of evidence. Past suspects have included bad parenting; brain damage due to head trauma, infection, or exposure to alcohol or lead; food allergy; and too much sugar. ADHD is thought to be at least partly hereditary (heredity). About 40 percent of children with the condition have a parent who has ADHD, and 35 percent have a sibling who is affected.

      Using imaging technologies such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), neurobiologists have found subtle differences in the structure and function of the brains (brain) of people with and without ADHD. One study, which compared the brains of boys with and without ADHD, found that the corpus callosum, the band of nerve fibres that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, contained slightly less tissue in those with ADHD. A similar study discovered small size discrepancies in the brain structures known as the caudate nuclei. In boys without ADHD, the right caudate nucleus was normally about 3 percent larger than the left caudate nucleus; this asymmetry was absent in boys with ADHD.

      Other studies have detected not just anatomic but functional differences between the brains of persons with and without ADHD. One research team observed decreased blood flow through the right caudate nucleus in adults with ADHD. Another study showed that an area of the prefrontal cortex known as the left anterior frontal lobe metabolizes less glucose in adults with ADHD, an indication that this area may be less active than in those without ADHD. Still other research showed higher levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine throughout the brains of people with ADHD and lower levels of another substance that inhibits the release of norepinephrine. Metabolites, or broken-down products, of another neurotransmitter, dopamine, have also been found in elevated concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid of boys with ADHD.

 These anatomic and physiological variations may all affect a sort of “braking system” in the brain. The brain is constantly coursing with many overlapping thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory stimuli. Attention can be defined as the ability to focus on one stimulus or task while resisting focus on the extraneous impulses; people with ADHD may have reduced ability to resist focus on these extraneous stimuli. The cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit, a chain of neurons in the brain that connects the prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia, and the thalamus in one continuous loop, is thought to be one of the main structures responsible for impulse inhibition. The size and activity differences found in the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia of people with ADHD may be evidence of a delay in the normal growth and development of this inhibitory circuit. If this supposition is true, it would help explain why the symptoms of ADHD sometimes subside with age. The cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit in the brains of people with ADHD may not fully mature—providing more normal levels of impulse inhibition—until the third decade of life, and it may never do so in some people. This developmental lag may also explain why stimulant medications work to enhance attention. In one study, treatment with Ritalin restored average levels of blood flow through the caudate nucleus; and in other trials dopamine levels, which normally decrease with age but remain high in people with ADHD, fell after treatment with Ritalin. The hypothesis would coincide, finally, with observations that the social development of children with ADHD progresses at the same rate as that of their peers but with a lag of two to three years.

Controversy—mental disorder or state of mind?

      ADHD has been a subject of great controversy and debate. A number of people who have been diagnosed with the syndrome—some of them psychologists and psychiatrists—have challenged the notion that personality traits such as inattentiveness, impulsivity, and distractibility deserve the label symptoms. They contend that many people labeled as having ADHD are neither “deficient” nor “disordered”—they are simply different. ADHD, this vocal minority argues, is not a mental disorder at all but a different state of mind, and it is because of this difference that people with ADHD often do not function well in standard learning or work environments. It is society and its expectations that have to change, they claim, not persons with short attention spans and high energy.

      Indeed, the view of ADHD as a problem requiring medical intervention is highly culture-bound, being largely peculiar to the United States and Canada. This is not to say that the behaviours characteristic of ADHD are absent from children in other nations. The larger question is whether children in other countries are identified by their parents, teachers, and physicians as having a problem. In Great Britain and France only about one percent of children are diagnosed with “hyperkinetic disorder,” the closest equivalent to ADHD in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (the diagnostic system used by most medical professionals outside North America.) And the British medical establishment hopes this number will remain comparatively low. The British Psychological Society suggested in a 1997 report that physicians and psychiatrists should not follow the American example of applying medical labels to such a wide variety of attention-related disorders: “The idea that children who don't attend or who don't sit still in school have a mental disorder is not entertained by most British clinicians.”

      Emerging scientific evidence about the causes and consequences of ADHD lends some plausibility to this viewpoint. As noted above, neurologists are finding that the anatomic and physiological differences underlying ADHD appear to be mere variations in the timing of brain development, not outright defects. Other researchers suggest that the behaviours characteristic of ADHD may once have conferred an evolutionary advantage, which would explain why their underlying genetic components have been conserved in the human gene pool.

      Nevertheless, the majority of American medical professionals are certain that ADHD is a disorder and not just a normal variance. Indeed, some argue that the categorization of ADHD as a neurobiological disorder was an important step forward, since it clearly distinguished the ability to pay attention or control one's impulses from other mental capacities such as innate intelligence. Once ADHD was acknowledged as a disorder, impulsive or inattentive people could no longer be dismissed as “slow” or “stupid.” Instead, the disorder could be managed with an appropriate treatment regimen—usually including medication but also incorporating certain organizing techniques—that would allow a person with ADHD to develop to the full extent of his or her intelligence.

Additional Reading

Two books by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey, Driven to Distraction (1994), and Answers to Distraction (1994, reissued 1996), present many case profiles in an effort to educate readers about the nature of ADHD and the many options available for treating the disorder. Lynn Weiss, ADD and Creativity (1997), suggests ways in which ADHD may be a source of originality and achievement. Russell A. Barkley, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment, 2nd ed. (1998), is a guide to the nature, diagnosis, and treatment of ADHD appropriate for clinical psychologists. A more accessible pamphlet intended for the public is Sharyn Neuwirth, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Decade of the Brain (1994, reprinted 1996).

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