Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Study Associates Frequent Digital Media Use in Teens with ADHD Symptoms
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Credit: Thinkstock/monkeybusinessimages
The rise of smart phones, tablets, and other mobile technologies has put digital media, quite literally, at the fingertips of today’s youth. Most teens now have ready access to a smartphone, with about half spending the majority of their waking hours texting, checking social media sites, watching videos, or otherwise engaged online [1].
So, what does this increased access to digital media—along with the instant gratification that it provides—mean for teens’ health and wellbeing? In a two-year study of more than 2,500 high school students in Los Angeles, NIH-funded researchers found that those who consumed the most digital media were also the most likely to develop symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) [2].
Creative Minds: Making Sense of Stress and the Brain
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Credit: Terry Dagradi, Yale School of Medicine
Right behind your forehead lies the most recently evolved region of the human brain: the prefrontal cortex (PFC). It’s a major control center for abstract thinking, thought analysis, working memory, planning, decision making, regulating emotions, and many of the things we most strongly associate with being human. But in times of stress, the PFC is literally taken offline, allowing more primitive parts of the brain to take over.
Amy Arnsten, a neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, has pioneered the study of stress on the brain [1] and how impaired regulation of stress response in the PFC contributes to neurological disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia [2, 3], and Alzheimer’s disease [4]. In these disorders, cells in the PFC are negatively affected, while those in the primary sensory cortex, a more primitive part of the brain that processes vision and sound, are thought to remain relatively unscathed. With support from a 2013 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, Arnsten hopes to uncover why the PFC is more vulnerable to disease than the primary sensory cortex—and how we might be able to prevent or reverse damage to these circuits.
