Ask HN: What can I read to learn about ADHD? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What can I read to learn about ADHD?

4 pointseudamoniac2 comments

In the last few years the online discourse around ADHD is very confusing. I have seen nearly every possible symptom attributed to it. I have seen numerous accounts of complete opposite symptoms attributed to it. I've seen increasing accounts of symptoms that seem to have nothing to do with executive disfunction, such as time blindness, chronic fatigue, and sensitivity to criticism. I am at the point where I don't think I understand what ADHD is or how it could present. It seems as though almost any disfunction could be explained by ADHD, if I cite Reddit et al.

I've also heard conflicting statements of fact. Stimulants affect sufferers differently from non-sufferers; stimulants affect them the same; it causes inability to focus; it causes hyper focus; it is inherent; it is caused (by various claims, like too many shorts).

What book can I read that is a scientifically supported account of ADHD? I want to know the truth of the matter. And from what I understand the truth of the matter is somewhat contentious; I would also like to read a scientifically supported, though not fully accepted, counterpoint.

Russel Barkley has some great books. I also like Ned Hallowel. They present a fairly sane, clear, practical perspective on what ADHD is and what living with it is like.

Stimulants do tend to work differently on people with ADHD than on the general population. It's mostly due to executive dysfunction which is largely exacerbated by poor regulation of dopamine/norepinephrine signaling. When you add stimulants, the signal to noise ratio improves and the dopamine baseline looks more typical. This is a great help in getting a brain to act on intentions.

In a typical person, these pathways are working well enough already. Add stimulants and the dopamine baseline is simply raised, more than it should be, which is problematic. What goes up must come down, and low dopamine feels bad. It's also a high risk place to be if you feel like the stimulant will fix it (and it will, temporarily). That's where addiction comes in.

Stimulants do effect everyone differently though. They don't help some people with ADHD. There's no single universal solution.

The truth of the matter in a field that still needs more thorough studies and a better understanding in the experts in the field who write the diagnosis? Barkley has a few videos on those with counterpoints, the pattern here is to look if ADHD and autism are actually their focus and in the case of studies, if they take the fundamentals into account. Fundamentals like ADHD most often being hereditary. E.g. I read a study about ADHD self-diagnosis and social media and it completely lacking numbers on how likely a self-diagnosis is correct, whether the subjects had a previous diagnosi like depression (a common mis-diagnosis) or how competent the doctors were in the field of ADHD. That study gets attention, ironically, with its claim that social media causes more self-diagnois, but it's those details you want to watch out for when reading counterpoints.

There's no contradiction between the inability to focus (at will) and hyper focus. As an analogy, a car you build for a land speed record is fantastic at the salt flats but usually really bad when it comes to corners or transporting your groceries.

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