Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

nimh.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 89 posts

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#51

Post by teamonkey »

mirsadm wrote: post #11
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

If you have a child with ADHD you will know. They are different.

Especially clear if you have one who does and one who doesn't.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#52

Post by bluefirebrand »

weweersdfsd wrote: post #32
bluefirebrand wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like that you list a whole lot of things that ADHD includes that most people are unaware of, but I wanted to call attention to the two that probably had the largest negative impact on my own life Rejection Sensitivity and Emotional Disregulation I have always been paralyzed by being afraid of failure (rejection), and that has kept me from pursuing a lot of things in the past And I've always been prone to ang…

I wonder if the symptoms you described can be also explained by being on autism spectrum. And then there's generalized anxiety disorder - a common comorbidity with ADHD, which could also cause worrying about failure. I fairly certain I have either ADHD, autism, or probably both, and have existing diagnosis pointing to being "neuroatypical". But coming up with exact diagnosis seems to be pretty difficult, because many…

It definitely is.

For ADHD in particular I think you have to zero in on executive function. It does bring along a lot of friends, but poor executive function is absolutely the keystone of any ADHD diagnosis

If you don't struggle with that, then you can probably safely eliminate it as a suspect... Or at least put it much lower on the list

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#53

Post by improv »

thfuran wrote: post #5
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

Are you also skeptical of obesity in teens because eating a lot is just the general nature of teens, especially boys? Are you appalled that diabetics take insulin every day because you once injected yourself with insulin you didn't need and experienced severe side effects?

Diabetes is a biological disease which can be objectively proven and diagnosed based on biological tests.

There are no objective biological diagnostic criteria for anything in the DSM.

"psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" -Allen Frances, The New Crisis of Confidence in Psychiatric Diagnosis

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

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#54

Post by fatnoah »

_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

> My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD

That's the multi-billion dollar question. From grades K-3, my son got straight A's and was a typical "boy" in the classroom. Occasionally not the best at paying attention, but no big deal.

Fourth grade was another story. He'd come home exhausted, and cry himself into a nap nearly every day. Not coincidentally, that's what the academics shifted from pure memory, associative reasoning, and recall to tasks that also required planning and executive function. That, plus the expectations of better ability to sit still and pay attention were just too much.

We eventually paid the big $$$ for a full, two-day neuro-psych evaluation. It was eye-opening for both my wife and I. For me, it showed how differently my son's brain was working, and for my wife it shined a light on her undiagnosed ADHD.

We did resist giving our son medication, and waited until he decided that he wanted to try it (16 years). It made an amazing difference in his ability to study and stay on task, but it did come with the weight loss and a serious 4-6pm crash every day, though those effects seemed to mitigate over time.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#55

Post by techcode »

qpingo wrote: post #15
ryandvm wrote: post #6

> They found that youth with ADHD had heightened connectivity between structures deep in the brain involved in learning, movement, reward, and emotion (caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens seeds) and structures in the frontal area of the brain involved in attention and control of unwanted behaviors (superior temporal gyri, insula, inferior parietal lobe, and inferior frontal gyri). So... ADHD is a symptom of an ov…

All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. Which is not really a problem unless you want a family or to live in nice parts of cities.

There's a lot of high-paying tech jobs that can be playing into ADHD (and other not neuro typical brains) strengths and focus thats more like running 42 1km "sprints" than mostly consistent pace 42km marathon.

Things that come to mind are data science/analysis, debugging and fixing outages (finalizing follow up RFO might be hardest part ), security/hacking (hopefully white hat)...

And basically whatever else one personally finds interesting to dig into deep and/or wide.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#56

Post by nick__m »

remotefonts wrote: post #37
lolinder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These comparisons feel like bad faith. This is what they actually said: > I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children ... They explicitly say that they know it affects some children, but they're concerned that it's overdiagnosed because the symptoms have overlap with normal child development. This isn't some kind of uni…

Wait... Which barbaric country is that where a simple family doctor can prescribe amphetamines like that? Not in my EU country. It's a controlled medication and can only be prescribed by psychiatrists.

Canada is one of them, my family doctor put me on Vyvanse, after seing me for the second time for an unrelated problem, because he noted that I was alternating between hyperfocus and zoning out when he talked to me.

It positively changed my life and I am quite happy that a "simple family doctor" can prescribe amphetamines if he thinks that it's appropriate.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#57

Post by tstrimple »

2four2 wrote: post #13
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

> The drugs also scare me... The idea of giving something like that to a child profoundly scares me. It works differently in people with the disorder. I took Adderall as a child and as an adult for adhd. It didn't get me wired nor did I have withdrawal symptoms, I simply felt more centered and capable of starting tasks. I know that we can only draw on our own experiences to judge things, but understand that people wi…

This was pretty much my experience as well. I didn’t feel high or up when taking adderall. It was almost unnoticed while on it, but reflecting back on what I was able to accomplish during the day it clearly had an impact. After taking it for close to a year, I just stopped cold turkey and had zero issues with any withdrawal symptoms.

My brother has been known to take adderall recreationally. Apparently he would crush it up and snort it. He definitely gets a high from it. I’m not sure how much the difference in our experience is due to the delivery method versus differences in how our bodies processed it.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#58

Post by permalac »

mirsadm wrote: post #11
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

If you have a child with ADHD you will know. They are different.

Absolutely. Take my two kids, they are wildly different,and so equal. One can focus a bit the other is impossible to get focused. He gets distracted when doing a wee, is astonishing, sometimes I'm speechless.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#59

Post by whoknowsidont »

qpingo wrote: post #15
ryandvm wrote: post #6

> They found that youth with ADHD had heightened connectivity between structures deep in the brain involved in learning, movement, reward, and emotion (caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens seeds) and structures in the frontal area of the brain involved in attention and control of unwanted behaviors (superior temporal gyri, insula, inferior parietal lobe, and inferior frontal gyri). So... ADHD is a symptom of an ov…

All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. Which is not really a problem unless you want a family or to live in nice parts of cities.

>All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus.

This is not a good understanding of ADHD. People with ADHD have hyperfocus tendencies, and this in fact can apply to their job while they ignore everything else.

That is to say extremely successful people might be that way BECAUSE of their ADHD, not in spite of it. A programmer who devotes the majority of their life to learning their craft, or an artist who spends all their attention on their next (or first) hit album.

But it's an even worse understanding of what high-paying jobs actually require.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#60

Post by faeriechangling »

fatnoah wrote: post #54
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

> My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD That's the multi-billion dollar question. From grades K-3, my son got straight A's and was a typical "boy" in the classroom. Occasionally not the best at paying attention, but no big deal. Fourth grade was another story. He'd come home exhausted, and cry himself into a nap nearly every day. Not coincidentally, that's wh…

>We did resist giving our son medication, and waited until he decided that he wanted to try it (16 years)

I sincerely think this is a good thing to do and gives people a healthier relationship to mental health than being coerced into taking drugs with harsh side-effects.

Post reply on HN