Snowdrop

This is a very interesting study, with one elementary mistake! It was thought for years that the dopaminergic system was responsible for reward, - it isn't, but people, including scientists who should know better keep calling it so! The mesocorticolimbic system, which is a primary dopamine pathway, involving the stratium and the accumbens produces dopamine, but that dopamine does not produce 'reward' it produces 'desire' or what we would term 'craving.' - This 'desire' is the basis of addiction. What happens when this pathway is stimulated is that associated systems which produce opioids, - the brain's own heroin are triggered to release those opioids, which is where the 'reward' comes in. However after a while, opioid production begins to fall and so we have desire without pleasure or reward! This is why addicts need more and more of a drug to feel the reward - in order to release the opioids! It is also why many addicts feel the craving to take drugs, but don't get pleasure from it!  Anyway, it seems that this system might be undersensitive in some children who have ADHD and this research might lead to more effective treatments.

Indeed at Snowdrop, we use several techniques with children who have ADHD, which directly target these neural systems.

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The underlying causes of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have yet to be well characterized. But a new study utilizing brain imaging has found an abnormality in the pathway responsible for the motivation/reward system in patients with ADHD. The finding may lead to more effective treatments for the condition as well as a greater understanding of ADHD behavior.

A hallmark of ADHD is lack of attention. Especially seen in the classroom, both children and adults with the disorder lack the ability to focus for extended periods of time. Scientists suspected the symptom was due to a deficit in motivation and reward system--a process which can hone focus with the understanding that a reward (or at least not a punishment) will be given if successful.

Studying that pathway is a difficult task. It relies on the chemical dopamine, which can be easily affected by ADHD treatment or drug abuse which is common in adult ADHD sufferers. Tests to this point have been relatively small, but a push by lead author Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, finally saw a sizable cohort of participants investigated.

53 adults with ADHD who had never received treatment were subjected to a PET scan along with 44 healthy controls. Researchers looked at both ends of the dopamine pathway--"dopamine receptors, to which the chemical messenger binds to propagate the "reward" signal, and dopamine transporters, which take up and recycle excess dopamine after the signal is sent."

The study showed those with ADHD had lower levels of both receptors and transporters. This was especially clear in the acumbens and midbrain, both of which are regions important to the motivation/reward process.

Understanding the deficit in dopamine can help change the way ADHD patients interact with the world. Volkow stated, "[The pathway's] involvement in ADHD supports the use of interventions to enhance the appeal and relevance of school and work tasks to improve performance."

Though the dopamine problems have not been a solid fact until this moment, the medication that has been used for decades were on the right track. "Our results also support the continued use of stimulant medications — the most common pharmacological treatment for ADHD — which have been shown to increase attention to cognitive tasks by elevating brain dopamine," Volkow said.

The team also hopes that this study will help adults with ADHD who tend towards drug abuse and obesity. The lack of dopamine makes the rewards system difficult to trigger, so overeating and over use of stimulant drugs may be seen as a dangerous form of compensation, an unconscious move to help bolster the feeling of reward. Developing therapies that help attenuate the need for drugs and binge eating will greatly improve quality of life. Thanks to the examiner

This important study will help to inform and develop what is already Snowdrop's extensive range of techniques to help children with ADHD.

A new University of Central Florida study may explain why children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder move around a lot – it helps them stay alert enough to complete challenging tasks.

In studies of 8- to 12-year-old boys, Psychology Professor Mark D. Rapport found that children with and without ADHD sat relatively still while watching Star Wars and painting on a computer program.

All of the children became more active when they were required to remember and manipulate computer-generated letters, numbers and shapes for a short time. Children with ADHD became significantly more active – moving their hands and feet and swiveling in their chairs more – than their typically developing peers during those tasks.

Rapport's research indicates that children with ADHD need to move more to maintain the required level of alertness while performing tasks that challenge their working memory. Performing math problems mentally and remembering multi-step directions are examples of tasks that require working memory, which involves remembering and manipulating information for a short time.

"We've known for years that children with ADHD are more active than their peers," said Rapport, whose findings are published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. "What we haven't known is why."

"They use movement to keep themselves alert," Rapport added. "They have a hard time sitting still unless they're in a highly stimulating environment where they don't need to use much working memory."

Rapport compared the children's movements during the tests to adults' tendency to fidget and move around in their chairs to stay alert during long meetings.

The findings have immediate implications for treating children with ADHD. Parents and educators can use a variety of available methods and strategies to minimize working memory failures. Providing written instructions, simplifying multi-step directions, and using poster checklists can help children with ADHD learn without overwhelming their working memories.

"When they are doing homework, let them fidget, stand up or chew gum," he said. "Unless their behavior is destructive, severely limiting their activity could be counterproductive."

Rapport's findings may also explain why stimulant medications improve the behavior of most children with ADHD. Those medications improve the physiological arousal of children with ADHD, increasing their alertness. Previous studies have shown that stimulant medications temporarily improve working memory abilities.

Rapport's research team studied 23 boys, including 12 who were diagnosed with ADHD. Each child took a variety of tests at the UCF Children's Learning Clinic on four consecutive Saturdays. Devices called actigraphs placed on both ankles and the non-dominant hand measured the frequency and intensity of each child's movement 16 times per second. The children were told they were wearing special watches that allowed them to play games.

In the first of the two published studies, the research team demonstrated that children with ADHD have significantly impaired visual and verbal working memory compared with their typically developing peers. In one test, the children were asked to reorder and recall the locations of dots on a computer screen. Compared with their typically developing peers, the children with ADHD performed much worse on that test – and on a similar one requiring them to reorder and recall sequences of numbers and letters.

The second study focused on the frequency and intensity of movement by the children while they were taking those two tests.