[Excerpt] First of all, congratulations on getting the care and medication you need — I’m so glad it’s helping! But don’t be discouraged that it hasn’t solved everything, especially your finances. “Certain things tend to be a lot harder for people with ADHD, and research shows that money is one of them,” says Dr. Christine…

Even as a kid, Alice Lovatt was always getting in trouble for being late. She was often embarrassed after letting down friends for her tardiness, and she was routinely stressed about arriving at school on time. “I just don’t seem to have that clock that ticks by in my head,” said Lovatt, a musician and…

Summary: Attention depends on the brain’s ability to filter out distractions, but new research suggests this works best when background brain activity is quieter. Scientists found that lowering certain versions of the Homer1 gene improved focus in mice by calming neural noise. The effect was strongest during a critical developmental window. This approach could inspire…

A new study published in Epidemiology provides evidence that returning to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic benefited children’s mental health. While some mainstream reporting has misinterpreted these results as an absolute drop in cases, the research analyzes insurance claims from California to show that school reopenings instead helped slow the rising rates of mental…

A new comprehensive analysis suggests that maternal use of antibiotics during pregnancy is associated with a slightly elevated likelihood of the child receiving a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The research indicates that this statistical link is stronger when antibiotics are administered during the second or third trimesters. These findings were published recently in the…

For decades, clinicians have wrestled with a thorny question: Do antidepressants taken during pregnancy increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in children? Or do those risks stem from the underlying psychiatric illness itself? A comprehensive new review in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests the answer is more complicated (and, at the same time, more…

TOPLINE: Early breastfeeding, particularly during the first 4 months of life, was associated with fewer emotional and behavioural problems in children at the age of 4 years. Children breastfed for this duration had reduced internalising and externalising problems, aggressive behaviour, and symptoms related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). No additional benefit…

In an NIH-funded study led by researchers from Mass General Brigham, children with more adverse prenatal exposures (APEs) showed higher rates of behavior problems that persisted into mid-adolescence, faster cortical thinning across multiple brain regions, and more depressive symptoms than children with fewer APEs. The researchers’ results are published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Key Takeaways: A large cohort study showed no association between use of acid-suppressant medications in pregnancy and neuropsychiatric outcomes in offspring after controlling for familial factors. Initial analyses showed “modest” increases in risk for these conditions, although absolute risks were still low. However, sibling-control analyses showed no such association, suggesting previous observations, “reflect residual confounding,”…

Ritalin and Adderall don’t act on the brain’s attention circuitry, a study found.

In two newly published studies, researchers at the Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) investigated how family dogs’ ADHD-like traits relate to their learning and self-control. Dogs resemble humans in many ways—even traits similar to human Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can naturally appear in them and can be assessed through validated questionnaires developed by the…

A judge found the use of the term “disorganised” to refer to a colleague counts as harassment as it could “undermine” a colleague and “violate” their dignity. It comes after Nicole Hogger, a PR account manager, claimed she was treated unfairly following her ADHD diagnosis. She argued that her employer was responsible for disability harassment,…