ADHD brains have low levels of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is linked arm-in-arm with dopamine. Dopamine is the thing that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure center. The ADHD brain has impaired activity in four functional regions of the brain.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Inattentive Type in Adults. People with ADHD of the inattentive type have trouble paying attention to details, are easily distracted, often have trouble organizing or finishing tasks and often forget routine chores (such as paying bills on time or returning phone calls).
One study found that kids with ADHD don't have the same brain connections as those without. An ADHD brain may have different connections between the frontal cortex and the visual processing area. This means that people with ADHD might process things differently than people without the condition.
Research has shown that in children with ADHD, the prefrontal cortex matures more slowly than typically developing kids. It is also slightly smaller in size. Similarly, the cerebellum, hippocampus, and amygdala are also thought to be smaller in volume in kids with ADHD.
In sum. The ADHD brain is smaller than the non-ADHD brain and has fewer connections between different brain regions. Their brains do not have the neural organization to self-regulate and to stop automatic responses.
Executive functions have other roles which affect how someone thinks. In people with ADHD, these executive dysfunctions impact thinking in numerous ways. People with ADHD don't really think faster than people without it, but it can sometimes seem like they do. People with ADHD do think differently though, in a sense.
People with ADHD may have areas of the brain that mature more slowly or have different activity levels than a neurotypical brain. Some brain differences may change as a child matures and grows older. The brain maturation process varies by the child's developmental stage.
ADHD is often also associated with lower intelligence quotient (IQ; e.g., Crosbie and Schachar, 2001). For instance, Frazier et al. (2004) reported in their meta-analysis that in comparison to individuals without ADHD, individuals with ADHD score an average of 9 points lower on most commercial IQ tests.
Tasks in the neurotypical world have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Individuals with ADHD don't know where and how to start, since they can't find the beginning. They jump into the middle of a task and work in all directions at once.
Brain MRI is a new and experimental tool in the world of ADHD research. Though brain scans cannot yet reliably diagnose ADHD, some scientists are using them to identify environmental and prenatal factors that affect symptoms, and to better understand how stimulant medications trigger symptom control vs. side effects.
The good news is that your brain retains this ability to change from birth to old age. ADHD brains that have deficits in one area will attempt to rewire themselves to accomplish a task. There are activities that can increase the brain's effectiveness. Meditation, for example, changes the brain in important ways.
Misdiagnosis is not uncommon when high IQ and ADHD collide. Very bright children who are also highly active are sometimes misdiagnosed with ADHD. On the other hand, some highly intelligent children with ADHD can focus on things that interest them for an extended period of time, which can lead to misdiagnosis as well.
They might feel badly about the way their symptoms affect others, or they might not care. Although there are differences in brain function to consider, ADHDers can also be just like neurotypical people in that they can have varying levels of empathy.
But scientists believe that has to do with how they process information. When you have ADHD, distractions may prevent you from taking in information, or your brain may store it in a disorganized way. Memories aren't lost, they aren't made in the first place.
The problem: The social maturity of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) may be a few years behind that of their peers. In addition, they have difficulty reading verbal and physical social cues, misinterpreting remarks, or not getting jokes or games.
Shankman: Simply put, ADHD is the brain's inability to produce as much dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline as “regular” people's brains produce. Because of that, our brains have become “faster.” When managed right, that becomes a superpower. Have you found that you tend to think faster than most people? Yes.
At Work or School
Research has found that people with ADHD have more creativity and idea generation than people without the disorder. 3 This can lead to outside-the-box thinking that is so important for innovation. Hyper-focus: Many people with ADHD become hyper-focused on things that interest them.
The Gift of ADHD: They say that adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have almost a sixth sense about people. My sharp sense of intuition is the one personal attribute that I've always been proud of. Since I was little I've been able to smell a two-faced person from a mile away.
Autism is very distinct from ADHD, but the core symptoms of ADHD-Combined type, i.e., attention deficit, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, would appear to also be features of autism. ASD and ADHD are neurobiological disorders characterized by similar underlying neuropsychological “deficits”.
He is one of the most successful and well-known entrepreneurs of modern times. Bill Gates the co-founder of Microsoft is known to have ADHD and has admitted to struggling with ADHD symptoms. He's also one of the wealthiest people in the world.
Yet, we know one of the hallmark challenges for ADHD adults is self-regulation, which involves multiple executive functions, including, yes, internalized self-talk.
"In children with ADHD, the brain matures in a normal pattern but is delayed by three years in some regions, when compared to children without the disorder," said the study's lead investigator, Dr. Philip Shaw, a child psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health.
The maturation process is slower for young adults with ADHD and it's not linear, says Kathleen Nadeau, Ph. D., Director of Chesapeake Psychological Services of Maryland and co-author of Understanding Girls With ADHD. There's a lot of up and down, back and forth.
That's because kids with ADHD are less mature than their peers. That's what ADHD is: an immaturity of the brain's infrastructure. That immaturity impacts a child's executive functions , including attention and self-control. If a child is much younger than others in his grade, he may appear even more immature.