adhd

High tech scans of brain metabolism are often cited as evidence that ADHD children’s brains are different, and this is the cause of their symptoms. Though the data from these studies is indisputable, their interpretation is fallacious and misleading.

First, we must step back and understand a little about the brain and what medical scanning machines measure in the brain. The brain thinks and stores information by making subtle, but stable changes in its own structure. We can monitor this process with PET and fMRI (positron emission tomography and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanners because of the changes in metabolism of glucose in those areas of the brain that are effected when you think in a certain way. If during a PET/fMRI study someone is asked to think about their romantic interest, one part of their brain will light up on the scanner screen. If, on the other hand, they are asked to work math problems, another area of their brain will light up. From this, one can tell which parts of the brain are associated with what types of mental activities. If one were to think of the same activity all the time, a certain part of the brain would be illuminated on the scanner screen all the time.

This is where researcher’s logic breaks down with regard to ADHD. ADHD children, no matter what theory you ascribe to, have a chronic way of thinking about and dealing with things around them. Just as working math problems continuously would cause a certain part of the brain to light up continuously, the ADHD child’s chronic emotional defense pattern of thinking causes certain parts of his brain to be lit up in a particular way. This is what is being observed during PET studies of ADHD patients.

During the PET scan, both the math problem solver and the attention deficit disorder child’s brains show a certain activity pattern because of their way of thinking. No one would ever suggest that the illumination of a part of someone’s brain while solving math problems was due to some brain anomaly. Yet, this is the logic applied to children with attention deficit disorder.

Though every Statistics professor likes to cite bizarre examples (New York pavement temperatures and banana crops) to illustrate the fallacy of imputing causation from correlation, experimenters feel free to impute causation to support their favorite hypothesis. This is inconsistent, illogical, and violates the most basic premise of descriptive statistics. In the current case, the misuse of statistical correlation to suggest causation only serves to reify the experimenter’s foregone conclusion that attention deficit disorder is a neurological disorder. Such experimenters are not looking for the truth. They want to generate support, however unwarranted, for their point of view.