Brain Matures a Few Years Late in ADHD, But Follows Normal Pattern

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - Compontent of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.

In youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)....the brain matures in a normal pattern but is delayed three years in some regions, on average, compared to youth without the disorder, an imaging study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has revealed. The delay in ADHD was most prominent in regions at the front of the brain’s outer mantle (cortex), important for the ability to control thinking, attention and planning. Otherwise, both groups showed a similar back-to-front wave of brain maturation with different areas peaking in thickness at different times

"Finding a normal pattern of cortex maturation, albeit delayed, in children with ADHD should be reassuring to families and could help to explain why many youth eventually seem to grow out of the disorder," explained Philip Shaw, M.D., NIMH Child Psychiatry Branch, who led research team....

The researchers scanned most of the 446 participants — ranging from preschoolers to young adults — at least twice at about three-year intervals. They focused on the age when cortex thickening during childhood gives way to thinning following puberty, as unused neural connections are pruned for optimal efficiency during the teen years.

In both ADHD and control groups, sensory processing and motor control areas at the back and top of the brain peaked in thickness earlier in childhood, while the frontal cortex areas responsible for higher-order executive control functions peaked later, during the teen years. These frontal areas support the ability to suppress inappropriate actions and thoughts, focus attention, remember things from moment to moment, work for reward, and control movement — functions often disturbed in people with ADHD.

The word that stands out to me and now to you, due to me putting the word in bold letters in NORMAL. If all these children [I dont have statistics, but the website for the drug concerta says; approximately 8 to 10 percent of the school-age population. In fact, these statistics indicate that it's possible another student in your child's classroom may also have ADHD.] are normal. Why are there so many drugs for treatments of normal people?

Concerta,
Methylphenidate Hcl,
Rilatine,
Ritalin,
Ritalin-SR,
Rubifen,
Adderall,
Betanamin(banned in America),
Cylert(banned in America),
Tradon(banned in America),
Dexedrine,
Ritalin-SR,
Rubifen,
Strattera,
Just to name a few

Just think about it, do you really want someone you care about to be on mind altering drugs?