According to a report in today's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, children with ADD have elevated nerve firing in a brain region involved in motor activity. Children with ADD, the researchers predicted, would have a tough time resisting the impulse to press the button every time, which they'd been told not to do.
Experts agree, if the results are confirmed in a larger group of children.
Furthermore, says Julie Schweitzer, a psychologist who studies ADD at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, the study suggests that the striatal region may make a suitable target for potential drug therapies. Developmental Neuroimaging Frackowiak et al.