Comment by fao_
2 years ago
citation needed.
ADHD is a deficit in dopamine processing/production within the brain, it has physiological signs that we can look for:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11689-022-09440-2
2 years ago
citation needed.
ADHD is a deficit in dopamine processing/production within the brain, it has physiological signs that we can look for:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11689-022-09440-2
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2839459/#:~:tex.... Correct. fMRI studies show stark prefrontal activation differences between ADHD and neurotypical brains. I have run fMRI studies for air traffic controllers, who have the opposite experience from ADHD. Very high working memory and processing speed.
> Very high working memory and processing speed
Are both of those really clinical markers for ADHD? as in, adhd would be expected to have low working memory and low processing speed? My understanding is its more about executive function I.E. deciding to start tasks.
admittedly my experience is coloured by my own clinical diagnosis of adhd plus anecdotally good working memory and processing speed
Both my son and I have a GAI in the gifted range. Our psi and wmi pull us down out of contention. I'm talking 88 and below. Both are heavily executive function loaded; a halmark of ADHD. Same happened with algebra. He was forced to repeat in 9th grade and they tanked me right out of algebra in 8th. Both of us taught ourselves calculus in HS because we were bored to tears. Algebra is heavily executive function loaded. Imperative languages with good debuggers or scripted were easy for us. Declarative languages, like SQL, not so much. Functional programming depends heavily on where I am with respect to the cortisol curve.
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One imagines it's like a fast CPU with great L3 cache but nobody plugged the actual RAM in so you gotta use spinning rust as swap for bigger workloads.
DSM-V and ICD?
ADHD is diagnosed based on symptoms, not based on physiological signs. Like most diagnoses, it's a co-occurring set of traits we'de decided is outside of what's normal.
This is being investigated and may eventually become part of the diagnosis (if you can afford the tests):
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1026...
>In conclusion, a series of biomarkers in the literature are promising as objective parameters to more accurately diagnose ADHD, especially in those with comorbidities that prevent the use of DSM-5. However, more research is needed to confirm the reliability of the biomarkers in larger cohort studies.
But yeah, generally there are a lot of conditions where you go report symptoms to your doctor or perhaps a specialist and they prescribe a treatment based on that alone. Testing is mostly used to rule out the really nasty possibilities or figure out what's actually going on when first-line treatments don't work.
Diagnosis is not the same as underlying physiological cause. The Browns or Vanderbilt assessments are useful for identifying the disorder because the symptoms are stereotypical.