Little Matthew Thomas enjoys running around outside, climbing jungle gyms, walls… anything he can find. No matter how many times his mother tells him it’s dangerous to be running around the pool, he still attempts to climb over that fence at least once a week. Every week he gets into trouble, but it seems that he just won’t listen!
Don’t even start with Matthew Thomas in school. The kids all call him Mat for short, but to the teachers, he is “Ma-thew-Tho-Mas!“. He doesn’t sit still. Halfway through any lesson, one can almost always expect a screech to arise from one of the girls because he has just pulled her hair, or is throwing little bits of eraser into her ear. He hates doing homework, and he gets bored sitting through tests. His mother, while she loves him dearly, has long-since lost patience with trying to tutor him. If anything, she’s starting to feel like a bad mother and wondering what she’s doing wrong.
Is she doing something wrong? Or is there nothing she can do about it anyway?
In current scientific literature, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is stated to affect about 6% of children and is 4 times more prevalent in boys than girls. ADHD is behaviorally diagnosed. This means that if the child displays enough of the ADHD symptoms before the age of 7, (These including hyperactivity, impulsiveness and inattention both at home and in school, which lead to problems with learning and making friends) the psychologist can diagnose him with ADHD.
If a child is diagnosed with ADHD, there are various options of treatment, the most common being the use of stimulant drugs like Ritalin® and various amphetamine salts that are effective for approximately 70% of patients. These drugs work by activating the dopamine system of the brain, something that cocaine does too well. Of course ADHD medication at low doses are much safer than cocaine, but common side effects like stomach aches, headaches, drowsiness and heart pulpitations can make taking the drugs rather unpleasant. Also, do we need to pump our kids full of drugs to keep them under control, and make them learn the way we want to teach? Even worse, drugs can change the way the brain is wired, how do we know if the child actually has ADHD, or if he’s just a problematic naughty kid that requires a more creative method of education? What if we aren’t re-wiring the brain for the better? Psychologists now also diagnose adult ADHD and many desperate students all over the world have managed to fool them into prescribing ADHD drugs that also enhance the mental performance of non-ADHD persons.
Clearly there is a need for a biological marker to verify the behavioural diagnosis. Tuberculosis and the common cold both cause coughs, but correct treatment can be given by determining the particular organisms that are causing the problem. HIV and hepatitis C are both immune-compromising diseases, transmitted in the same way, but require vastly different treatments. For a definitive treatment, one needs a definitive cause. And herein lies the crux of this puzzle.
We don’t yet know the exact cause of ADHD.
Leading scientists in the field have done many fascinating experiments to try solve this enigma. Large scale genetic studies say that ADHD is hereditary, but it’s not just one gene causing one problem. It’s lots of genes with little snags, which accumulate to become the mystery that is ADHD. Brain images have shown that certain areas of the ADHD brain are smaller and others larger when compared to normal children. So is the behavior caused by the brain being born this was way because his genetics said so, or did the brain re-wire to become this way to try compensate for the flawed genes while trying to be a good boy? In fact, when scientists compare ADHD children to normal children, did their on-board psychologist really get the diagnosis right when choosing subjects? How do they know that they aren’t mistakenly comparing the children resultant of better or worse parenting??
And that’s the essence of the scientific chase; trying to work out answers to our chicken-and-egg questions. Finding ways to pause the brain, just long enough it to take pictures of signals that happen in milliseconds, and attempt to explain how and why we are the way we are. It feels like trying to catch up with an ADHD child running away from you while you’re holding his medication in one hand and trying not to spill the cup of water in the other. Often, exasperation dominates a scientist’s day, but don’t You wish we could get to the bottom of it all?
