Why brain training needs to be better targeted, and more widely available

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ADHD, sub­stance abuse and con­duct dis­or­der devel­op from the same neu­rocog­ni­tive deficits (Med­ical Xpress):

“Researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­tre­al and CHU Sainte-Jus­tine Research Cen­tre have traced the ori­gins of ADHD, sub­stance abuse and con­duct dis­or­der, and found that they devel­op from the same neu­rocog­ni­tive deficits, which in turn explains why they often occur togeth­er…

“Our find­ings sug­gest that risk for exter­nal­iz­ing prob­lems exist on a con­tin­u­um in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, are eas­i­ly mea­sured and can be tar­get­ed before diag­nos­able prob­lems arise. The find­ings also help reduce stig­ma and address some of the com­plex­i­ties when diag­nos­ing and treat­ing con­cur­rent psy­chi­atric prob­lems. The impli­ca­tions are that clin­i­cians can man­age mul­ti­ple psy­chi­atric prob­lems by focus­ing on how a young per­son is func­tion­ing on a few key neu­rocog­ni­tive dimen­sions. The next step is to devel­op evi­dence-based inter­ven­tion strate­gies that will tar­get these three areas of brain function”…

The researchers were able to use sta­tis­ti­cal mod­el­ling to see what risk fac­tors were linked to which psy­chi­atric symp­toms… Three key neu­rocog­ni­tive dimen­sions were iden­ti­fied as being impli­cat­ed in most exter­nal­iz­ing problems…

“Pre­ven­tion and inter­ven­tion approach­es for exter­nal­iz­ing prob­lems – ADHD, con­duct dis­or­der and sub­stance use – could ben­e­fit from incor­po­rat­ing train­ing com­po­nents that tar­get the brain func­tions or deficits relat­ed to impul­sive action, impul­sive choice, and reward sensitivity.”

Learn more:

• Study: Neur­al and Cog­ni­tive Cor­re­lates of the Com­mon and Spe­cif­ic Vari­ance Across Exter­nal­iz­ing Prob­lems in Young Ado­les­cence (Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Psychiatry)
• Does brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions