ADHD

Meditation may improve multitasking

I recently reported that developing skill at video action games doesn’t seem to improve general multitasking ability, but perhaps another approach might be more successful. Meditation has, of course, been garnering growing evidence that it can help improve attentional control. A new study extends that research to multitasking in a realistic work setting.

The study involved three groups of 12-15 female human resource managers, of whom one group received eight weeks of mindfulness-based meditation training, another received eight weeks of body relaxation training, and another initially received no training (control), before receiving the mindfulness training after the eight weeks.

Before and after each eight-week period, the participants were given a stressful test of their multitasking abilities, requiring them to use email, calendars, instant-messaging, telephone and word-processing tools to perform common office tasks (scheduling a meeting; finding a free conference room; writing a draft announcement of the meeting, eating snacks and drinking water, writing a memo proposing a creative agenda item for the meeting). Necessary information came from emails, instant messages, telephone calls, and knocks on the door. The participants had 20 minutes to complete the tasks.

The meditation group reported lower levels of stress during the multitasking test compared to the control and relaxation groups. They also spent more time on tasks and switched tasks less often, while taking no longer to complete the overall job than the others. Both meditation and relaxation groups showed improved memory for the tasks they were performing.

After the control group underwent the meditation training, their results matched those of the meditation group.

The meditation training emphasized:

  • control of attentional focus
  • focusing attention in the present moment or task
  • switching focus
  • breath and body awareness.

The relaxation training emphasized progressive tensing and relaxing of major muscle groups, aided by relaxation imagery.

It's interesting that overall time on task didn't change (the researchers remarked that the meditators didn't take any longer, but of course most of us would be looking for it to become shorter!), but I wouldn't read too much into it. The task was relatively brief. It would be interesting to see the effects over the course of, say, a day. Nor did the study look at how well the tasks were done.

But it is, of course, important that meditation training reduced task-switching and stress. Whether it also has a postitive effect on overall time and quality of work is a question for another day.

IBMT improves white matter efficiency

A recent imaging study has found that four weeks of a form of mindfulness meditation called integrative body–mind training (IBMT) improved white matter efficiency in areas surrounding the anterior cingulate cortex, compared to controls given relaxation training.

The anterior cingulate is part of the brain network related to self-regulation. Deficits in activation in this part of the brain have been associated with attention deficit disorder, dementia, depression, schizophrenia, and other disorders.

Using the data from a 2010 study involving 45 U.S. college students, and another involving 68 Chinese students, researchers found that axon density (one factor in white matter efficiency) had improved after two weeks, but not myelin formation. After a month (about 11 hours of meditation), both had improved. Mood improved by two weeks.

Previous studies involving computer-based training for improving working memory have found changes in myelination, but not axon density.

Meditators’ better cognitive control may be rooted in emotional regulation

Previous work has found that people who engage in meditation show higher levels of executive control on laboratory tasks.

An electrical signal called the Error Related Negativity (ERN) occurs in the brain within 100 ms of an error being committed. When meditators and non-meditators were given the Stroop Test, meditators not only tended to do better on the test, but their ERNs were stronger.

The interesting thing about this is that the best performers were those who scored highest on emotional acceptance. Mindful awareness was less important. It’s suggested that meditators may be able to control their behavior better not because of their sharper focus, but because they are more aware of their emotions and regulate them better.

Something to think about!

Levy, D. M., Wobbrock, J. O., Kaszniak, A. W., & Ostergren, M. (2012). The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation Training on Multitasking in a High-Stress Information Environment, 45–52. Full text available at http://faculty.washington.edu/wobbrock/pubs/gi-12.02.pdf

[3051] Tang, Y-Y., Lu Q., Fan M., Yang Y., & Posner M. I.
(2012).  Mechanisms of white matter changes induced by meditation.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109(26), 10570 - 10574.

[3052] Teper, R., & Inzlicht M.
(2012).  Meditation, mindfulness and executive control: the importance of emotional acceptance and brain-based performance monitoring.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

I have said before that there is little evidence that working memory training has any wider benefits than to the skills being practiced. Occasionally a study arises that gets everyone all excited, but by and large training only benefits the skill being practiced — despite the fact that working memory underlies so many cognitive tasks, and limited working memory capacity is thought to negatively affect performance on so many tasks. However, one area that does seem to have had some success is working memory training for those with ADHD, and researchers have certainly not given hope of finding evidence for wider transfer among other groups (such as older adults).

A recent review of the research to date has, sadly, concluded that the benefits of working memory training programs are limited. But this is not to say there are no benefits.

For a start, the meta-analysis (analyzing data across studies) found that working memory training produced large immediate benefits for verbal working memory. These benefits were greatest for children below the age of 10.

These benefits, however, were not maintained long-term (at an average of 9 months after training, there were no significant benefits) — although benefits were found in one study in which the verbal working memory task was very similar to the training task (indicating that the specific skill practiced did maintain some improvement long-term).

Visuospatial working memory also showed immediate benefits, and these did not vary across age groups. One factor that did make a difference was type of training: the CogMed training program produced greater improvement than the researcher-developed programs (the studies included 7 that used CogMed, 2 that used Jungle Memory, 2 Cognifit, 4 n-back, 1 Memory Booster, and 7 researcher-developed programs).

Interestingly, visuospatial working memory did show some long-term benefits, although it should be noted that the average follow-up was distinctly shorter than that for verbal working memory tasks (an average of 5 months post-training).

The burning question, of course, is how well this training transferred to dissimilar tasks. Here the evidence seems sadly clear — those using untreated control groups tended to find such transfer; those using treated control groups never did. Similarly, nonrandomized studies tended to find far transfer, but randomized studies did not.

In other words, when studies were properly designed (randomized trials with a control group that is given alternative treatment rather than no treatment), there was no evidence of transfer effects from working memory training to nonverbal ability. Moreover, even when found, these effects were only present immediately and not on follow-up.

Neither was there any evidence of transfer effects, either immediate or delayed, on verbal ability, word reading, or arithmetic. There was a small to moderate effect on training on attention (as measured by the Stroop test), but this only occurred immediately, and not on follow-up.

It seems clear from this review that there are few good, methodologically sound studies on this subject. But three very important caveats should be noted in connection with the researchers’ dispiriting conclusion.

First of all, because this is an analysis across all data, important differences between groups or individuals may be concealed. This is a common criticism of meta-analysis, and the researchers do try and answer it. Nevertheless, I think it is still a very real issue, especially in light of evidence that the benefit of training may depend on whether the challenge of the training is at the right level for the individual.

On the other hand, another recent study, that compared young adults who received 20 sessions of training on a dual n-back task or a visual search program, or received no training at all, did look for an individual-differences effect, and failed to find it. Participants were tested repeatedly on their fluid intelligence, multitasking ability, working memory capacity, crystallized intelligence, and perceptual speed. Although those taking part in the training programs improved their performance on the tasks they practiced, there was no transfer to any of the cognitive measures. When participants were analyzed separately on the basis of their improvement during training, there was still no evidence of transfer to broader cognitive abilities.

The second important challenge comes from the lack of skill consolidation — having a short training program followed by months of not practicing the skill is not something any of us would expect to produce long-term benefits.

The third point concerns a recent finding that multi-domain cognitive training produces longer-lasting benefits than single-domain training (the same study also showed the benefit of booster training). It seems quite likely that working memory training is a valuable part of a training program that also includes practice in real-world tasks that incorporate working memory.

I should emphasize that these results only apply to ‘normal’ children and adults. The question of training benefits for those with attention difficulties or early Alzheimer’s is a completely different issue. But for these healthy individuals, it has to be said that the weight of the evidence is against working memory training producing more general cognitive improvement. Nevertheless, I think it’s probably an important part of a cognitive training program — as long as the emphasis is on part.

Melby-Lervåg, M., & Hulme, C. (2012). Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Meta-Analytic Review. Developmental psychology. doi:10.1037/a0028228
Full text available at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/dev-ofp-melby-lervag.pdf

[3012] Redick, T. S., Shipstead Z., Harrison T. L., Hicks K. L., Fried D. E., Hambrick D. Z., et al.
(2012).  No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement After Working Memory Training: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study..
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Full text available at http://psychology.gatech.edu/renglelab/publications/2012/RedicketalJEPG.pdf
 

I’ve mentioned before that, for some few people, exercise doesn’t seem to have a benefit, and the benefits of exercise for fighting age-related cognitive decline may not apply to those carrying the Alzheimer’s gene.

New research suggests there is another gene variant that may impact on exercise’s effects. The new study follows on from earlier research that found that physical exercise during adolescence had more durable effects on object memory and BDNF levels than exercise during adulthood. In this study, 54 healthy but sedentary young adults (aged 18-36) were given an object recognition test before participating in either (a) a 4-week exercise program, with exercise on the final test day, (b) a 4-week exercise program, without exercise on the final test day, (c) a single bout of exercise on the final test day, or (d) remaining sedentary between test days.

Exercise both improved object recognition memory and reduced perceived stress — but only in one group: those who exercised for 4 weeks including the final day of testing. In other words, both regular exercise and recent exercise was needed to produce a memory benefit.

But there is one more factor — and this is where it gets really interesting — the benefit in this group didn’t happen for every member of the group. Only those carrying a specific genotype benefited from regular and recent exercise. This genotype has to do with the brain protein BDNF, which is involved in neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity, and which is increased by exercise. The BDNF gene comes in two flavors: Val and Met. Previous research has linked the less common Met variant to poorer memory and greater age-related cognitive decline.

In other words, it seems that the Met allele affects how much BDNF is released as a result of exercise, and this in turn affects cognitive benefits.

The object recognition test involved participants seeing a series of 50 images (previously selected as being highly recognizable and nameable), followed by a 15 minute filler task, before seeing 100 images (the previous 50 and 50 new images) and indicating which had been seen previously. The filler task involved surveys for state anxiety, perceived stress, and mood. On the first (pre-program) visit, a survey for trait anxiety was also completed.

Of the 54 participants, 31 carried two copies of the Val allele, and 23 had at least one Met allele (19 Val/Met; 4 Met/Met). The population frequency for carrying at least one Met allele is 50% for Asians, 30% in Caucasians, and 4% in African-Americans.

Although exercise decreased stress and increased positive mood, the cognitive benefits of exercise were not associated with mood or anxiety. Neither was genotype associated with mood or anxiety. However, some studies have found an association between depression and the Met variant, and this study is of course quite small.

A final note: this study is part of research looking at the benefits of exercise for children with ADHD. The findings suggest that genotyping would enable us to predict whether an individual — a child with ADHD or an older adult at risk of cognitive decline or impairment — would benefit from this treatment strategy.

A three-year study involving 3,034 Singaporean children and adolescents (aged 8-17) has found that those who spent more time playing video games subsequently had more attention problems, even when earlier attention problems, sex, age, race, and socioeconomic status were statistically controlled. Those who were more impulsive or had more attention problems subsequently spent more time playing video games, even when initial video game playing was statistically controlled. These findings suggest that the cause-effect relationship between video game playing and attention problems/impulsiveness goes both ways.

While the particular content may have an effect on attention problems and impulsiveness (violent games appeared to be an additional, independent, factor in attention problems), it was the total time spent that was more important.

Participants completed questionnaires about their video game playing habits annually for three years running. They also completed questionnaires aimed to measure attention and impulsiveness (the Current ADHD Symptoms Scale Self-Report, and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11, respectively). Regarding attention, the children answered questions such as how often they "fail to give close attention to details or make careless mistakes" in their work or "blurt out answers before questions have been completed." For the impulsivity test, they selected points they felt described themselves, such as "I often make things worse because I act without thinking" or "I concentrate easily."

How does this finding relate to other evidence showing that playing video games can improve visual attention for rapid and accurate recognition of information from the environment? The answer lies in the different nature of attention — the attention needed for visual search differs in important ways from the attention necessary for sustained concentration in contexts that are often effortful and/or boring.

The example of many attention-challenged individuals makes this more understandable. Many parents of children with ADHD find that the only thing their child can concentrate on for a lengthy period is video games. The answer to that riddle is the rapidly changing nature of video games, and the way they are designed to grab the attention, with flashing lights and loud noises and moving images etc. The young person is not, therefore, improving their ability to focus in a way that is helpful for the school environment, or indeed for everyday life.

Unfortunately, this study suggests that it is precisely those people who are most in need of such ‘external supports’ for attention (‘grabbing’ stimuli such as lights and sounds and movement) — that is, those individuals who are least able to control their own attention — who are most likely to spend a lot of time playing such games. The games then weaken their attentional control even more, and so the cycle continues.

So this research answers the question ADHD parents tend to have: should I encourage my child to play video games a lot (given that it’s the only thing that holds their attention) or not? The answer, unfortunately, would seem to be: not. However, all is not lost. There are computer ‘games’ that are designed to help those with ADHD learn to concentrate in a way that is more useful (see the Topic collection on ADHD for more on this).

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends one hour per day of total media screen time (including TV, DVDs, video games, Internet, iPad, etc.) for children in elementary school, and two hours for children in secondary school.

Gentile, D.A., Swing, E.L., Lim, C.G. & Khoo, A. 2012. Video game playing, attention problems, and impulsiveness: Evidence of bidirectional causality. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, Vol 1(1), Jan 2012, 62-70. doi: 10.1037/a0026969

Full text available at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/ppm-1-1-62.pdf

Data from parents and teachers of 2000 randomly selected children has revealed that only 29% of children with attention problems finished high school compared to 89% of children without such problems. When it came to hyperactivity, the difference was smaller: 40% versus 77%. After taking account of factors such as socioeconomic status and health issues that are correlated with ADHD, inattention was still a highly significant contributor, but hyperactivity was not.

Yearly assessments of the children were taken from age 6 to 12, and high school graduation status was obtained from official records. Attention problems were evaluated by teachers on the basis of behavior such as an inability to concentrate, absentmindedness, or a tendency to give up or be easily distracted. Hyperactivity was identified by behavior such as restlessness, running around, squirming and being fidgety.

The researchers make the excellent point that those with attention difficulties are often forgotten because, unlike hyperactive children, they don't disturb the class.

The findings point to the need to distinguish inattention and hyperactivity, and to provide early preventive intervention for attention problems.

I’ve always been intrigued by neurofeedback training. But when it first raised its head, technology was far less sophisticated. Now a new study has used real-time functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) feedback from the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex to improve people's ability to control their thoughts and focus their attention.

In the study, participants performed tasks that either raised or lowered mental introspection in 30-second intervals over four six-minute sessions. Those with access to real-time fMRI feedback could see their RLPFC activity increase during introspection and decrease during non-introspective thoughts, such as mental tasks that focused on body sensations. These participants became significantly better at controlling their thoughts and performing the mental tasks. Moreover, the improved regulation was reflected only in activity in the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex. Those given inaccurate or no brain feedback showed no such improvement.

The findings point to a means of improving attentional control, and also raise hope for clinical treatments of conditions that can benefit from improved awareness and regulation of one's thoughts, including depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

A study involving 360 patients with degenerative dementia (109 people with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and 251 with Alzheimer's) and 149 matched controls, has found that 48% of those with DLB had previously suffered from adult ADHD. This compares with 15% found in both the control group and the group with Alzheimer's. DLB tends to be under-diagnosed, but is thought to account for around 10% of dementia cases in older people.

ADHD and DLB are thought to both involve the same neurotransmitter pathway problems.

A twin study involving 457 pairs has found that ADHD on its own was associated with a reduced ability to inhibit responses to stimuli, while reading disabilities were associated independently with weaknesses on measures of phoneme awareness, verbal reasoning, and working memory. Both disorders were associated with a slow processing speed, and there was a significant genetic correlation between RD and ADHD.

However, just to remind us that genetics are rarely solely the answer, another twin study, involving 271 pairs of 10-year-old identical and fraternal twins, has found evidence that the associations between ADHD symptoms, reading outcomes and math outcomes are a product of both genetic and common environmental influences. The researchers speculate that such environmental influences may include aspects of the classroom and homework environment.

A working memory training program developed to help children with ADHD has been tested by 52 students, aged 7 to 17. Between a quarter and a third of the children showed significant improvement in inattention, overall number of ADHD symptoms, initiation, planning/organization, and working memory, according to parental ratings. While teacher ratings were positive, they did not quite reach significance. It is worth noting that this improvement was maintained at the four-month follow-up.

The children used the software in their homes, under the supervision of their parents and the researchers. The program includes a set of 25 exercises in a computer-game format that students had to complete within 5 to 6 weeks. For example, in one exercise a robot will speak numbers in a certain order, and the student has to click on the numbers the robot spoke, on the computer screen, in the opposite order. Each session is 30 to 40 minutes long, and the exercises become progressively harder as the students improve.

The software was developed by a Swedish company called Cogmed in conjunction with the Karolinska Institute. Earlier studies in Sweden have been promising, but this is the first study in the United States, and the first to include children on medication (60% of the participants).

Analysis of DNA and lifestyle data from a representative group of 2,500 U.S. middle- and high-school students tracked from 1994 to 2008 in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health has revealed that lower academic performance was associated with three dopamine gene variants. Having more of the dopamine gene variants (three rather than one, say) was associated with a significantly lower GPA.

Moreover, each of the dopamine genes (on its own) was linked to specific deficits: there was a marginally significant negative effect on English grades for students with a specific variant in the DAT1 gene, but no apparent effect on math, history or science; a specific variant in the DRD2 gene was correlated with a markedly negative effect on grades in all four subjects; those with the deleterious DRD4 variant had significantly lower grades in English and math, but only marginally lower grades in history and science.

Precisely why these specific genes might impact academic performance isn’t known with any surety, but they have previously been linked to such factors as adolescent delinquency, working memory, intelligence and cognitive abilities, and ADHD, among others.

Five years ago I reported on a finding that primary school children exposed to loud aircraft noise showed impaired reading comprehension (see below). Now a small Norwegian study has found that playing white noise helped secondary school children with attention problems, but significantly impaired those who were normally attentive.

The adolescents were asked to remember as many items as possible from a list read out either in the presence or absence of white noise (78dB). The results were consistent with a computational model based on the concepts of stochastic resonance and dopamine related internal noise, postulating that a moderate amount of external noise would benefit individuals in hypodopaminergic states (such as those with ADHD). The results need to be verified with a larger group, but they do suggest a new approach to helping those with attention problems.

The previous study referred to involved 2844 children aged 9-10. The children were selected from primary schools located near three major airports — Schiphol in the Netherlands, Barajas in Spain, and Heathrow in the UK. Reading age in children exposed to high levels of aircraft noise was delayed by up to 2 months in the UK and by up to 1 month in the Netherlands for each 5 decibel change in noise exposure. On the other hand, road traffic noise did not have an effect on reading and indeed was unexpectedly found to improve recall memory. An earlier German study found children attending schools near the old Munich airport improved their reading scores and cognitive memory performance when the airport shut down, while children going to school near the new airport experienced a decrease in testing scores.

A study following over 300 Mexican-American children living in an agricultural community has found that their prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides (measured by metabolites in the mother’s urine during pregnancy) was significantly associated with attention problems at age 5. This association was stronger among boys, and stronger with age (at 3 ½ the association, although present, did not reach statistical significance — perhaps because attention disorders are much harder to recognize in toddlers). Based on maternal report, performance on attention tests, and a psychometrician’s report, 8.5% of 5-year-olds were classified as having ADHD symptoms. Each tenfold increase in prenatal pesticide metabolites was linked to having five times the odds of scoring high on the computerized tests at age 5. The child’s own level of phosphate metabolites was not linked with attention problems.

Organophosphate pesticides disrupt acetylcholine, which is important for attention and short-term memory. While the exposure of these children to pesticides is presumably higher and more chronic than that of the general U.S. population, food is a significant source of pesticide exposure among the general population.

Marks AR, Harley K, Bradman A, Kogut K, Barr DB, Johnson C, et al. 2010. Organophosphate Pesticide Exposure and Attention in Young Mexican-American Children. Environ Health Perspect :-. doi:10.1289/ehp.1002056
Full text available at http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3...

Two independent studies have found that students whose birthdays fell just before their school's age enrollment cutoff date—making them among the youngest in their class—had a substantially higher rate of ADHD diagnoses than students who were born later. One study, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort, found that ADHD diagnoses among children born just prior to their state’s kindergarten eligibility cutoff date are more than 60% more prevalent than among those born just afterward (who therefore waited an extra year to begin school). Moreover, such children are more than twice as likely to be taking Ritalin in grades 5 and 8. While the child’s school starting age strongly affects teachers’ perceptions of ADHD symptoms, it only weakly affects parental perceptions (who are more likely to compare their child with others of the same age, rather than others in the same class). The other study, using data from the 1997 to 2006 National Health Interview Survey, found that 9.7% of those born just before the cutoff date were diagnosed with ADHD compared to 7.6% of those born just after.

The two findings suggest that many of these children are mistakenly being diagnosed with ADHD simply because they are less emotionally or intellectually mature than their (older) classmates.

While brain training programs can certainly improve your ability to do the task you’re practicing, there has been little evidence that this transfers to other tasks. In particular, the holy grail has been very broad transfer, through improvement in working memory. While there has been some evidence of this in pilot programs for children with ADHD, a new study is the first to show such improvement in older adults using a commercial brain training program.

A study involving 30 healthy adults aged 60 to 89 has demonstrated that ten hours of training on a computer game designed to boost visual perception improved perceptual abilities significantly, and also increased the accuracy of their visual working memory to the level of younger adults. There was a direct link between improved performance and changes in brain activity in the visual association cortex.

The computer game was one of those developed by Posit Science. Memory improvement was measured about one week after the end of training. The improvement did not, however, withstand multi-tasking, which is a particular problem for older adults. The participants, half of whom underwent the training, were college educated. The training challenged players to discriminate between two different shapes of sine waves (S-shaped patterns) moving across the screen. The memory test (which was performed before and after training) involved watching dots move across the screen, followed by a short delay and then re-testing for the memory of the exact direction the dots had moved.

A national Swedish study involving the 1.16 million children in a national birth cohort identified nearly 8000 on the country's Prescribed Drug Register as using a prescription for ADHD medication (and thus assumed to suffer from severe ADHD). These children were significantly more likely to come from a family on welfare benefits (135% more likely), to have a mother with only the most basic education (130% more likely than those with mothers with university degrees), and to come from a single parent family (54% more likely). Boys were three times more likely to be on ADHD medication than girls, with medication use highest in boys aged between 10 and 15. The finding that family adversity is such a strong risk factor points to the need for more research into the role of environment

A rat study shows how Ritalin improves concentration and, it now appears, speed of learning. The study reveals that it does this by increasing the activity of dopamine at two specific types of neurotransmitter receptors in the amygdala. The dopamine receptor tagged “D2” appears to control the ability to stay focused on a task, while the D1 receptor underlies learning efficiency. The finding may help the development of better-targeted drugs.

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Inconsistent processing speed among children with ADHD

A new analytical technique has revealed that the problem with children with ADHD is not so much that they are slower at responding to tasks, but rather that their response is inconsistent. The study of 25 children with ADHD and 24 typically developing peers found that on a task in which a number on one screen needed to be mentally added to another number shown on a second screen, those with ADHD were much less consistent in their response times, although the responses they did give were just as accurate. Higher levels of hyperactivity and restlessness or impulsivity (as measured by parent survey) correlated with more slower reaction times. The finding supports the idea that what underlies impaired working memory is a problem in how consistently a child with ADHD can respond during a working memory task.

[911] Buzy, W. M., Medoff D. R., & Schweitzer J. B.
(2009).  Intra-Individual Variability Among Children with ADHD - on a Working Memory Task: An Ex-Gaussian Approach.
Child Neuropsychology. 15(5), 441 - 441.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uoc--ips032409.php

Hyperactivity enables children with ADHD to stay alert

A study of 12 8- to 12-year-old boys with ADHD, and 11 of those without, has found that activity levels of those with ADHD increased significantly whenever they had to perform a task that placed demands on their working memory. In a highly stimulating environment where little working memory is required (such as watching a Star Wars video), those with ADHD kept just as still as their normal peers. It’s suggested that movement helps them stay alert enough to complete challenging tasks, and therefore trying to limit their activity (when non-destructive) is counterproductive. Providing written instructions, simplifying multi-step directions, and using poster checklists are all strategies that can be used to help children with ADHD learn without overwhelming their working memories.

[734] Rapport, M., Bolden J., Kofler M., Sarver D., Raiker J., & Alderson R.
(2009).  Hyperactivity in Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Ubiquitous Core Symptom or Manifestation of Working Memory Deficits?.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 37(4), 521 - 534.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uocf-ush030909.php

Transcendental Meditation reduces ADHD symptoms among students

A pilot study involving 10 middle school students with ADHD has found that those who participated in twice-daily 10 minute sessions of Transcendental Meditation for three months showed a dramatic reduction in stress and anxiety and improvements in ADHD symptoms and executive function. The effect was much greater than expected. ADHD children have a reduced ability to cope with stress.
A second, recently completed study has also found that three months practice of the technique resulted in significant positive changes in brain functioning during visual-motor skills, especially in the circuitry of the brain associated with attention and distractibility. After six months practice, measurements of distractibility moved into the normal range.

Grosswald, S.J., Stixrud, W.R., Travis, F. & Bateh, M.A. 2008. Use of the Transcendental Meditation technique to reduce symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by reducing stress and anxiety: An exploratory study. Current Issues in Education, 10 (2)

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/muom-tmr122408.php

How Ritalin works to focus attention

Ritalin has been widely used for decades to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but until now the mechanism of how it works hasn’t been well understood. Now a rat study has found that Ritalin, in low doses, fine-tunes the functioning of neurons in the prefrontal cortex, and has little effect elsewhere in the brain. It appears that Ritalin dramatically increases the sensitivity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex to signals coming from the hippocampus. However, in higher doses, prefrontal neurons stopped responding to incoming information, impairing cognition. Low doses also reinforced coordinated activity of neurons, and weakened activity that wasn't well coordinated. All of this suggests that Ritalin strengthens dominant and important signals within the prefrontal cortex, while lessening weaker signals that may act as distractors.

[663] Devilbiss, D. M., & Berridge C. W.
(2008).  Cognition-Enhancing Doses of Methylphenidate Preferentially Increase Prefrontal Cortex Neuronal Responsiveness.
Biological Psychiatry. 64(7), 626 - 635.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/uow-suh062408.php

Study raises questions about diagnosis, treatment of ADHD

The first large, longitudinal study of adolescents and ADHD has revealed that only about half of children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder exhibit the cognitive defects commonly associated with the condition. Part of the explanation may lie in the fact that ADHD is simply the extreme end of a normal continuum of behavior that varies in the population, and its diagnosis is defined by where health professionals "draw the line" on this continuum. This finding suggests that behavior-rating scales alone are not sensitive enough to differentiate between the two groups. Researchers also found surprising results regarding the effectiveness of medicine in treating ADHD. In contrast to children in United States, youth in northern Finland are rarely treated with medicine for ADHD, yet the prevalence, symptoms, psychiatric comorbidity and cognition of the disorder is relatively the same as in the U.S., where stimulant medication is widely used. Although the medication is very effective in the short-term, the study raises questions concerning its long-term efficacy. The study also confirmed that hyperactivity and impulsivity decrease with age, while inattention increasingly predominates; that ADHD is associated with increased rates of other psychiatric problems, especially depression, anxiety, oppositional behaviors, conduct disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The study of Finnish adolescents found a prevalence of 8.5% with a male/female ratio of 5.7:1.

[615] McCracken, J. T., Varilo T., Yang M. H., Nelson S. F., Peltonen L., JÄRVELIN M-R., et al.
(2007).  Prevalence and Psychiatric Comorbidity of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in an Adolescent Finnish Population.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 46(12), 1575 - 1583.

[1367] JÄRVELIN, M-R., Smalley S. L., Lubke G. H., MUTHÉN B., Moilanen I. K., McGough J. J., et al.
(2007).  Subtypes Versus Severity Differences in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the Northern Finnish Birth Cohort.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 46(12), 1584 - 1593.

[1030] Ebeling, H., JÄRVELIN M-R., Smalley S. L., Loo S. K., Humphrey L. A., Tapio T., et al.
(2007).  Executive Functioning Among Finnish Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 46(12), 1594 - 1604.

[1104] Hurtig, T., Ebeling H., Taanila A., Miettunen J., Smalley S. L., McGough J. J., et al.
(2007).  ADHD Symptoms and Subtypes: Relationship Between Childhood and Adolescent Symptoms.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 46(12), 1605 - 1613.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uoc--srq012208.php

Gene predicts better outcome as cortex normalizes in teens with ADHD

Recent research found that thickening of brain areas that control attention in the right cortex (right orbitofrontal/inferior prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex ) was associated with better clinical outcomes in ADHD. A new study has found that these brain areas are thinnest in those who carry a particular variant of a gene. The version of the dopamine D4 receptor gene, called the 7-repeat variant, was found in nearly a quarter of youth with ADHD and about one-sixth of the healthy controls. Although this particular gene version increased risk for ADHD, it also made it more likely that the areas would thicken during adolescence, with consequent improvement in behaviour and performance.

Citekey 1067/ibib]</p><p><a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/niom-gpb080107.php">http:... TV viewing during adolescence linked with risk of attention and learning difficulties</h3><p>A long-running study of 678 families in upstate New York, surveyed children at 14, 16 and 22 years old (averages), and again when the children in the study had reached an average age of 33. At age 14, 225 (33.2%) of the teens reported that they watched three or more hours of television per day. Those who watched 1 or more hours of television per day at mean age 14 years were at higher risk of poor homework completion, negative attitudes toward school, poor grades, and long-term academic failure. Those who watched 3 or more hours of television per day were most likely to experience these outcomes, and moreover were at higher risk of subsequent attention problems and were the least likely to receive postsecondary education. Analysis of the data also indicated that television watching contributes to learning difficulties and not vice versa.</p><p>[ibib]540 not found

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/jaaj-ftv050307.php

Drug for teen drivers with ADHD

A comparison of the effects of OROS methylphenidate (Concerta), a controlled-release stimulant, and extended release amphetamine salts (Adderall XR) on driving performance in teens with ADHD has found that treatments with Concerta led to fewer inattentive driving errors and less hyperactive or impulsive driving errors, such as speeding and inappropriate braking, compared with Adderall XR and placebo.

[1076] Cox, D. J., Merkel L. R., Moore M., Thorndike F., Muller C., & Kovatchev B.
(2006).  Relative Benefits of Stimulant Therapy With OROS Methylphenidate Versus Mixed Amphetamine Salts Extended Release in Improving the Driving Performance of Adolescent Drivers With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
Pediatrics. 118(3), e704-710 - e704-710.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060905225503.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/uovh-rfn090506.php

ADHD linked to genetic and environmental interactions

A study of 172 children who were enrolled in a community-based study of low levels of lead exposure has found evidence that increasing lead exposure is linked to impairment on a number of executive functions (impaired in those with ADHD), but that certain genetic and biological factors seemed to predispose an individual to the negative effects of lead exposure. For instance, only children with certain variations of the DRD4 gene seemed vulnerable to lead's adverse effects on attentional flexibility. Boys were more vulnerable to this effect than girls.

The study was presented on May 1, 2006 at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in San Francisco.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/cchm-sla042606.php

Drug improves information processing in adults with ADHD

Mixed amphetamine salts extended release (MAS XR) substantially improved the speed and accuracy in information processing of young adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Excitingly, the improvement persisted after the 3 weeks of treatment had been stopped for 3 weeks.

Kay, G.G. & Kardiasmenos, K.S. 2006. Effect of Mixed Amphetamine Salts Extended Release on Neurocognitive Speed in Young Adults with ADHD. Paper presented at the annual American Psychiatric Association Meeting in Toronto, Canada. Poster #NR678

Kay, G.G. & Kardiasmenos, K.S. 2006. Effect of Mixed Amphetamine Salts Extended Release on Neurocognitive Accuracy in Young Adults with ADHD. Paper presented at the annual American Psychiatric Association Meeting in Toronto, Canada. Poster #NR679

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/pn-mas_1052406.php

Breakdown of myelin insulation in brain's wiring implicated in childhood developmental disorders

Previous research has suggested that the production of myelin (a fatty insulation coating the brain's internal wiring) is a key component of brain development through childhood and well into middle age, when development peaks and deterioration begins, and that midlife breakdown of myelin is implicated to onset of Alzheimer's disease later in life. Now new research suggests the disruption of myelination is a key neurobiological component behind childhood developmental disorders, such as autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and addictive behaviors. The analysis also suggests that alcohol and other drugs of abuse have toxic effects on the myelination process in some adolescents.

Bartzokis, G. 2005. Adolescent Psychiatry. Hillsdale, N.J.: The Analytic Press Inc.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/uoc--bom111405.php

ADDERALL XR significantly improves driving performance, attention in young adults with ADHD

ADDERALL XR® significantly improved driving performance, cognitive function and attention in young adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a controlled driving simulator study. An earlier study found that adults with ADHD had a significant higher incidence of traffic violations, and license suspensions than patients without ADHD — ADHD patients were five times more likely than non-ADHD patients to have five or more speeding tickets and three times more likely to have had three or more vehicular crashes.

Kay, G. 2005. The Effect of Adderall XR and Atomoxetine on Simulated Driving Safety in Young Adults with ADHD. Presented at the 18th Annual U.S. Psychiatric & Mental Health Congress in Las Vegas, NV.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/pn-axs110805.php

Cognitive therapy for ADHD

A researcher that has previously demonstrated that working memory capacity can be increased through training, has now reported that the training software has produced significant improvement in children with ADHD — a disability that is associated with deficits in working memory. The study involved 53 children with ADHD, aged 7-12, who were not on medication for their disability. 44 of these met the criterion of more than 20 days of training. Half the participants were assigned to the working memory training program and the other half to a comparison program. 60% of those who underwent the wm training program no longer met the clinical criteria for ADHD after five weeks of training. The children were tested on visual-spatial memory, which has the strongest link to inattention and ADHD. Further research is needed to show that training improves ability on a wider range of tasks.

[583] Klingberg, T., Fernell E., Olesen P. J., Johnson M., Gustafsson P., Dahlström K., et al.
(2005).  Computerized Training of Working Memory in Children With ADHD-A Randomized, Controlled Trial.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 44(2), 177 - 186.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000560D5-7252-12B9-9A2C83414B7F0000&sc=I100322

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