Insights Into ADHD

Stimulants have been used for decades to treat ADHD in children. But while many parents and teachers can attest to the benefits they bring, even scientists weren’t sure exactly how they work.

Now, new research led by the University at Buffalo offers some real answers.

Results of the study show that stimulant medications improve classroom behavior and performance by enhancing two specific cognitive processes.

One is short-term working memory. That’s the ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind. The other is response inhibition—suppressing an inappropriate action such as shouting out an answer rather than raising your hand.  

While these effects have been previously hypothesized, the study results are the strongest evidence yet of what’s really at the core of the medications’ usefulness. The study is the first of its kind in that it combined the clinical and laboratory worlds to examine basic cognition and behavioral outcomes in the same children at the same time.

The more information we can gain about how these medications work, say researchers, the better able we’ll be to develop new, more targeted treatments, or to lessen the side effects of those currently in use.

Larry Hawk, a professor in UB’s Department of Psychology and lead author of the study, notes that some of the best ways to improve basic cognitive processes may not even involve medication.

“Behavioral treatment and parent training may strengthen these cognitive processes indirectly,” he says. “Both can be used to enhance executive function—and behavior—by systematically and gradually reinforcing greater and greater self-control.”