Biological Psychiatry 57, #11, June 1, 2005
I had hoped to review the latest issue of Biological Psychiatry, focusing on ADHD, for our readers, but the project is too much for one issue of the newsletter. So we will take it in smaller bites.
Joseph Biederman’s overview: ADHD is seen as “multi-factorial” and “clinically heterogeneous.” Predictors of persistence of ADHD into adulthood include: family history, psychiatric comorbidity such as Oppositional-Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder, and psychosocial adversity. Important risk factors for ADHD: pregnancy and delivery complications; maternal smoking during pregnancy, and adverse family environment. Risk has been found to increment for every additional indicator of family adversity: severe marital discord, low social class, large family size, paternal criminality, maternal mental disorder, and foster care placement. (This dependency, incidentally, is shared with major depression.) The obvious importance of such environmental variables notwithstanding, overall heritability of ADHD averages some 77% across studies. In fact, familial factors may be considered as predictors of adaptive functioning and emotional health in general, rather than of ADHD specifically. (more…)
There is a stirring of some dinosaur bones on the lists with regard to the control of neurofeedback by the professions, and in particular by psychology. It is inevitable that as neurofeedback becomes accepted that there should be an attempt by various professions to establish their turf. My own view, from my outsider perspective, is that no profession has a natural claim for proprietorship of neurofeedback, and that a turf battle will harm the field, not help it. Saying that will turn out to be as irrelevant as arguing against the adventure in Iraq, but it may be helpful to at least consider alternative futures.