It seems important to note that this was a study of 35 people.
35.
That seems like a surprisingly low number from which to draw broad conclusions of brain activity for adults diagnosed with ADHD when they were children.
35.
That seems like a surprisingly low number from which to draw broad conclusions of brain activity for adults diagnosed with ADHD when they were children.
Hypothetically, if this study was undertaken in small-town Wisconsin, and genetic factors could even remotely be involved, the samples wouldn't be representative in the slightest for most genes in the world.
It's good that you question it, it should always be one of the first questions asked when looking at these sorts of statistics.
I was just pointing out that the number 35, by itself, is plenty to justify a conclusion, and because perfect uniformity is not completely possible, more tends to be better. If the conclusion is faulty, it isn't typically due to the sample size of 35 being too low.
"Historically, the very first demonstration of the t-test (in "Student"'s 1908 paper) was in an application to sample sizes of size four. Indeed, obtaining improved results for small samples is the test's claim to fame"
It's quite possible that a number of these "cured" people were just misdiagnosed in the first place.
35 isn't all that terrible, either. An estimated 10 million adults have ADHD (although that sounds bogus to me), and plugging that into a calculator with a 95% confidence, that gives a confidence interval of 16.5. Not sufficient for definitive proof of anything, but still meaningful.