Stimulant Inaction: ADHD drug’s mental lift proves surprisingly weak
By Bruce Bower
Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often calm down and behave better when taking the stimulant medication methylphenidate. Nonetheless, this drug largely fails to alleviate underlying mental difficulties considered crucial to ADHD, a new study finds.
Methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin, leaves intact a shortage of “executive” mental functions that many researchers suspect elicit ADHD-related behavior problems, say psychiatrist David R. Coghill of the University of Dundee, Scotland, and his colleagues. Executive-functioning tests focus on the ability to ignore distracting information, manipulate information in one’s head, and shift attention from one attribute of an object to another.