New Studies Bridge Gap in ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental illness that causes restlessness, trouble concentrating, and impulsive behavior in children.

Symptoms can sometimes go unrecognized, especially in girls, until much later in life.

If left untreated, the disorder can cause problems for some people, increasing their risk of anxiety and depression and interfering with their relationships, careers, and even life expectancy.

improved comprehension
Among the benefits of the Medical Research Council (MRC)-funded initiatives will be a better understanding of ADHD.

• how the illness impacts women in particular and its relationship to later depression
• The influence of parental response in the early years

Early intervention is required
The research will aid in identifying more people at risk and allowing physicians to provide interventions at an earlier stage to help people with ADHD manage their disease more effectively.

Reach their full potential

Dr Joanna Latimer, Head of Neurosciences and Mental Health at MRC, part of UK Research and Innovation, said “Previous research has shown that intervening at an early stage is crucial. If ADHD is correctly diagnosed and treated, the negative impacts that it can lead to in some circumstances will be greatly reduced.

Our hope is that these projects will mean a greater number of people can be offered evidence-based interventions at the right time, so that the condition does not hold children and young adults back from reaching their potential.”

Project synopses

A life-course perspective on ADHD in women

Queen Mary University of London, led by Dr Jessica Agnew-Blais

This research will provide much-needed new evidence on how ADHD manifests in girls and women, as well as why so many women are not diagnosed with the disorder until they are adults.

For many years, ADHD was thought to be primarily a boy’s illness, which means that much of the study to far has ignored girls and women. As more women and girls are diagnosed with the illness, it is vital that we learn more about how it differs in women.

This project will use current data from a longitudinal cohort with yearly ADHD examinations to see if puberty is associated with worsening ADHD symptoms.

It will also include new data collecting to see whether hormonal variations during the menstrual cycle are linked to an increase in ADHD symptoms and impairment.

Why and how can ADHD cause sadness in young people?
Cardiff University is led by Dr Lucy Riglin.

This project will investigate how ADHD and depression symptoms might co-develop over time, as well as how the condition can raise the risk of depression.

The research will look into the cognitive and clinical factors that link ADHD to depression, as well as the effect of close relationships and heredity.

The research will draw on two current UK population cohorts with extensive data covering childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, and will involve young people with lived experience directly. These young people will also have an important role in the final process, ensuring that the study’s findings are engaging, meaningful, and accessible to all persons suffering from ADHD and depression.

Understanding the early causal pathways in ADHD: might early-emerging atypicalities in activity and affect generate later-emerging attention difficulties?
Professor Emily Jones of Birkbeck, University of London, and Professor Sam Wass of the University of East London are leading the charge.

This research will look into whether:

• Increased activity levels and signs of emotional distress in infants who develop ADHD can have an impact on real-world interactions, particularly those between the child and their parent.
• Differing parental responses to the infant’s activity and emotions may change the impact of ADHD on learning later in life.

The research will work with infants with and without a family history of ADHD, combining data obtained using cutting-edge real-time methods with a novel analysis of older children’s data.

The new data will be collected at home and in a specially designed ‘ToddlerLab,’ which will monitor brain activity during natural play using motion tracking, facial recognition, and wireless wearable neuroimaging.

The study will employ a novel mechanistic intervention in which parents will be assisted in scaffolding their child’s attention via real-time monitoring of arousal and behavior.

It will be tested to see if this can change the association between the parent’s reaction to the child’s activities and emotion, potentially lessening the influence on the child’s ability to concentrate as they grow older.

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