One of the most controversial childhood disorders of our era is the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It is because of the complexity of its diagnosis, which to date is done in a subjective manner (until now there were no objective tests or analyzes that were used for it), and because it involves in some cases the consumption of methylphenidate, a psychostimulant that can be addictive and that it is not without side effects.
For many years there has been talk that, in the absence of diagnostic tests, the risk of overdiagnosis was evident, and in the US, for example, they came to consider that 1 in 10 children suffered from it (a very high figure).
Now, a new study will help professionals determine when there is ADHD and when there is not, and they have managed to prove that children with ADHD have insufficient brain maturation.
Your brain is smaller and less mature.
In the largest study ever done on this condition, with more than 3,400 people, researchers saw that the brains of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder It is smaller and matures later than that of people who do not have this disorder.
As we read in CCMA, MRIs were performed at 1,713 people with ADHD and 1,529 people without said disorder, aged between 4 and 63 years.
Josep Antoni Ramos-Quiroga, head of Psychiatry at Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona and co-author of the study explains the conclusions of the study:
The study clearly shows that ADHD is a disorder of the brain, with structures that are not functioning properly and that are smaller. The other, this delay in maturation, is why people with ADHD do not have behaviors to control their hyperactivity or emotional instability, precisely because these structures are altered.
Finally we can say that ADHD exists
The study has been published in the magazine The Lancet, and professionals from eleven countries have participated in it. What they have discovered represents a very important step in the investigation of the disorder, and also in the diagnosis of what is considered the most frequent mental illness in children and adolescents.
This should allow people with ADHD, families who are struggling with ADHD every day, to have a clear recognition and that no one questions more if the disorder exists or is something invented. ADHD is a disorder of the brain.
This clashes frontally with the statements he made before he died. Leon Eisenberg, the first person who spoke of ADHD, when he claimed that ADHD was "a fictitious disease."
Thanks to the study not only confirms its existence, but also opens new lines of research that should go in the search for causes and possible treatments, given that medicated patients improve in their performance, but not in brain volume (despite the medication the difference was also evident).
In addition, magnetic resonance imaging can be used to make a better diagnosis given that, as we have said, until now there was no objective evidence that could be used to determine the presence of the disorder.
