Sensible and perplexing changes in ADHD diagnostic criteria (DSM‑V)

The Amer­i­can Psy­chi­atric Asso­ci­a­tion recent­ly pub­lished DSM‑V, the first major revi­sion to the diag­nos­tic man­u­al for psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders since 1994. In DSM‑V, ADHD is includ­ed in the sec­tion on Neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal Dis­or­ders, rather than being grouped with the dis­rup­tive behav­ior dis­or­ders, i.e., Oppo­si­tion­al Defi­ant Dis­or­der and Con­duct Dis­or­der. This change bet­ter reflects the way ADHD is…

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Does ADHD medication treatment in childhood increase adult employment?

Although ADHD used to be con­sid­ered a dis­or­der of child­hood, fol­low-up stud­ies indi­cate that between 30% and 60% of chil­dren with ADHD con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence symp­toms and impair­ment in adult­hood. And, even when ADHD symp­toms decline over time, many indi­vid­u­als con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence sig­nif­i­cant impair­ment in impor­tant areas of func­tion­ing. For exam­ple, chil­dren with ADHD have 

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Michael Merzenich on Brain Training, Assessments, and Personal Brain Trainers

Inter­view with Dr. Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor at UCSF, a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant. In 1996, he was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Nas­daq: SCIL), and in 2004 became co-founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer of Posit Sci­ence. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in 1999 and to the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine this year. He retired as Fran­cis A. Sooy Pro­fes­sor and Co-Direc­tor of the Keck Cen­ter for Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San Fran­cis­co in 2007. You may have learned about his work in one of PBS TV spe­cials, mul­ti­ple media appear­ances, or neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty-relat­ed books.

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Shall we question the brand new book of human troubles

With three years still left until pub­li­ca­tion, the fights over the new ver­sion of the psy­chi­atric diag­nos­tic man­u­al, the DSM‑V, are hot­ting up and The New York Times has a con­cise arti­cle that cov­ers most of the main point of con­tention. — “What you have in the end,  Mr. Short­er said, “is this process of…

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