So, as most of you know I’m a foster parent, which is challenging but rewarding. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to deliver some new training on ADHD awareness for my fostering agency, which has amazing and also required much research. Of course, I know what it’s like to have ADHD, but the research was around the science behind it. What I discovered was very interesting and eye opening. After that article I saw last week trying to deny the existence of ADHD, I thought it would be good to give a simple overview of the science here.
“For years scientists have claimed a lack of dopamine causes ADHD, but that may not be the only explanation!”
ADHD Girl
So the most known thing about ADHD when it comes to the science is the lack of the chemical dopamine. Dopamine is a neurochemical transmitter which is a fancy way of saying it’s like a chemical computer wire; it makes sure the right signals are passed to the right places. In people with ADHD that chemical computer wire doesn’t function as it should, because it’s faulty for lack of a better term. Dopamine is associated with mood, motivation and learning so it makes sense that those with a lack of it have ADHD.
However, more recent studies suggests that a shortage of dopamine may not be the biggest cause of ADHD. A wide study in Paris of 3242 people; 1713 with ADHD and 1529 people without ADHD, found that there was a significant difference in the size of four main areas of the brain. These areas were the Amygdala, which is associated with regulating emotion, the caudate which is associated with working memory and cognitive function, the Hippocampus which is associated with learning and memory and finally the Putamen which is associated with learning and reward. The study also showed that the overall volume of the brain is smaller in people with ADHD. For more information about this study, check it out in the National Journal of Medicine here:- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8156241/
“Of course us ADHDers can be inteligent; our brains have the ability to think of several possiblities at once.”
ADHD gIRL
Now that doesn’t mean people with ADHD are not intelligence. Many various brain studies over the years show that the size of a brain has no real link to IQ or intelligence (because to me they are not the same thing; a lot of people with high IQ can sometimes have no real practical skills and I would factor that into real intelligence). Of course, this still doesn’t tell us where ADHD ultimately comes from, my personal opinion is it’s hereditary but then some experts such as Gabor Mate think it stems from environmental factors in the early years. This is also an equal valid opinion because a lot of brain development takes place at this stage and lots of connections are made.
So, do we have all the answers where ADHD is concerned? Unfortunately we don’t but I think we can safely say that enough research has taken place to realise that it is a very valid condition that has a huge impact on the people who have it. Hope I didn’t overwhelm you too much there with the scientific stuff, but it’s quite interesting to understand how our brains work. Catch you next time everyone!
