Article

2010-09-30 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Lancet study sez: ADHD is a genetic condition

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Posted by gorb 2010-09-30 03:19|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 The key to getting grants in Biomedical research is to claim that your discovery is pertinent to as many disorders as you can get away with.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2010-09-30 07:05|| 2010-09-30 07:05|| Front Page Top

#2 There is a very good theory that most ADHD is a side effect of a psychological trick the human species taught itself a long time ago.

That is, mentally, people are naturally able to go into deep states of focus or an unfocused state. However, this is not good if you are in a survival situation. So the species came up with a technique that keeps us between either state, so we can pay attention to that tiger over there.

Simply put, it is talking to ourselves. The internal dialogue, that parents and other adults teach all children, albeit unintentionally.

To meditate, or get into any deep focused or unfocused mental state, you have to be able to turn off the noise first.

But some people, and a lot of those with ADHD, get into an intensive inner dialogue state that reduces their attention span to a second or two. It is also very draining, as talking to yourself takes a lot of energy.

Fortunately there are techniques that can be used to restore control over the internal dialogue. And most everyone who gets more control over it likes the feeling, as it gives them more ability to focus or to unfocus their mind and get some inspiration from their subconscious.

And doing it this way is a lot better than drugs.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-09-30 10:00|| 2010-09-30 10:00|| Front Page Top

#3 Fortunately there are techniques that can be used to restore control over the internal dialogue.

Links or books, please, Anonymoose? Thank you.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-09-30 10:07|| 2010-09-30 10:07|| Front Page Top

#4 I very much doubt the internal dialogue (monlogue?) is learned.

Few people learn to control it (conciously stop it) and then only after considerable effort (meditation is the best known technique).

Posted by phil_b 2010-09-30 10:39|| 2010-09-30 10:39|| Front Page Top

#5 I'd like some kind of links, too. Best would be information about how I could get my son to apply it!

But I'm convinced it's a genetic problem. They have noticed specific abnormalities in the genes in the genes that correlate with problems that are characterized by the autism spectrum, and kids of ADHD and ADD parents tend to have way more autism than they should.

Posted by gorb 2010-09-30 11:28|| 2010-09-30 11:28|| Front Page Top

#6 My internal dialog comes from the evil penguins living in my head talking to each other.

Posted by DarthVader 2010-09-30 12:03|| 2010-09-30 12:03|| Front Page Top

#7 Mine bray like jackasses Vader.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-09-30 12:07|| 2010-09-30 12:07|| Front Page Top

#8 tw/gorb: Find a silent room with a table and a chair. Close the door so you won't be disturbed.

Sit down and put a quarter on the table in front of you. Focus on the quarter and try to stop "thinking".

Thoughts will enter your mind. Don't resist, give them a pat on the back to help them pass on through, while you return to "no mind".

Start with five minutes, then ten. Eliminate the quarter and the table. Work up to thirty minutes.

After some practice, you'll be able to switch off the internal dialog at will. Since the internal dialog is almost entirely rehashing the past or rehearsing future events, you will find yourself in the present, an unusual experience for most people.

Now, take a walk in the autumn woods with the dialog off!

Once the obscuring dialog has stopped, other more subtle phenomena of the mind begin to be observed, leading in some cases to "enlightenment" experiences. These are common to the mystics of all religions, and are not without risk to one's mental health. At that level, guidance (the "senior monk") is advisable.

The experts are the (non-theocratic) Buddhists, of course, who add additional, orthogonal concepts like karma and rebirth. Check your bookstore for items that aren't too new-agey. Read wikipedia on Buddhism.

How's that for a two minute dharma talk?

Posted by KBK 2010-09-30 12:50|| 2010-09-30 12:50|| Front Page Top

#9 Thank you, KBK. That will give a solid start.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-09-30 12:53|| 2010-09-30 12:53|| Front Page Top

#10 Gee.....I've only heard this for the past, oh, twenty years or so. Jolly good that the Lancet is keeping up with medical science. Good on ya, lads!

But seriously....never heard that there was a higher risk of autism in ADHD families. That's news to me, gorb. Any linky love for that?

(There IS a definite link to ADHD and eczema and allergies, though. Maybe there's something similar to that going on with autism?)

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2010-09-30 13:12|| 2010-09-30 13:12|| Front Page Top

#11 I'll wait until a reputable medical journal confirms these results.

Excellent point, TW. Its political slants have turned the Lancet into little more than a "scientific" version of the Weekly World News.

Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2010-09-30 13:16|| 2010-09-30 13:16|| Front Page Top

#12 Six males in my family and two females have ADHD half are on meds. Not one of them is Autistic or anything else. Some say ADHD folks are exceptionally creative.

Posted by Highefficiency 2010-09-30 14:45|| 2010-09-30 14:45|| Front Page Top

#13 The internal dialogue, that parents and other adults teach all children, albeit unintentionally.
I have no doubt whatsoever that internal dialogue is a taught phenomenon. This is a huge & complex topic beyond the scope of a Rantburg comment thread.
However, I am beginning to think that ADHD is a taught phenomenon also. The human genetic pool has really changed very little in the last 70 years. However, reliable observers (such as elementary school teachers with decades of tenure and accurate observational skills) have commented on the rise in ADHD behaviors in the people they care for, over the same period of time. Whatever the genetic underpinning of ADHD behaviors happens to be, it will NOT provide the explanation for the vast increase of ADHD behaviors & related problems. I don't have my own children, but have also been caring for them professionally my whole career.
I think much of the increase is due to a change in parenting techniques. I have been noting how adults supervise children in public places ever since I was a small child. The level of close attention adults give their charges have plunged over the decades. E.g., I've been attending church weekly my whole life. In the last 20 years I've noticed parents have been letting their small children literally run wild down aisles & up & down pews -- this just didn't happen, say, prior to 1970. I believe this lack of supervision / physical restraint is one of several ways parents have been teaching their children to act out in an ADHD fashion. IOW, it's more of a cultural phenomenon than a genetic one.
A specific example: I was shopping in dollar store one afternoon, following a grandmother and her pre-5 year old daughter. Grandma was deeply engrossed in studying the shelves. The girl was steadily getting more active, touching items on the shelves, then pulling them off & putting them back, then turning to the opposite side & repeating the process. In addition she was shifting her feet from side to side, almost dancing. I anticipated pretty soon some kind of dropped object would break on the floor and cause a mess. During all of this time, grandma never even glanced at or spoke to the girl, just a few feet away. I was gazing at the girl steadily while I was noticing this. The girl noticed me noticing her, and stopped to look back. Hyperactive behavior ceased totally for the moment. I looked down at her feet & noticed she had her shoes on wrong, right shoe for left, &c. All I said was, "If you put your shoes on wrong, you won't be able to escape a bear, and he'll be able to catch you." Suddenly grandma woke up & noticed both of us. Grandma chuckled, and continued down the aisle. The girl was deeply focussed on her new idea, and followed her grandma with calmness and collection. The dancing and jittering ceased, for a while anyway.
Decades before, my mother had told my sister the exact same thing with the same result. This is not rocket science.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-09-30 14:54|| 2010-09-30 14:54|| Front Page Top

#14 tw and gorb: There's a bunch of techniques for it, but here is one I think is the best.

It's based on the theory that the part of the brain that supports internal dialogue also supports attention in general, so if you can do something that requires a great deal of attention for an extended period, it turns off the internal dialogue.

And the longer you can keep it off, the more control you get over it. One person described it as "like having a mental knife switch", so you can just turn off the noise for an hour or more. Another said that when you can even turn it off for just a minute, suddenly "the fog is lifted and you can see the world."

To start with, the technique involves walking. Which is quite demanding of attention, though we hardly notice it anymore. While you're walking, you hold your fingers in some unusual way. It doesn't matter how, as long as it attracts your attention to your arms and hands. When you stop noticing them, hold your fingers in some other way.

Then the most important part is to unfocus your eyes while doing this. Normally when we look at things, we look from tiny point to tiny point, like in the famous eye tracking picture.

But when we unfocus our eyes, everything in front of us, in a 180 degree arc, is of equal value to our attention. Using a lot of attention.

So between the walking, the holding fingers unusually, and the unfocused eyes (either looking over the horizon, or 10-15 feet in front of you on the ground), so much attention is used that your brain cannot maintain the internal dialogue.

It's cumulative, so the more you do it the better you get. Most people just go for an hour's walk once a day, and after about two weeks they start to get some real results.

A few side notes is that you should never listen to music while you're doing this, or you can get the "earworm" from hell. Conversely, you can ignore your internal dialogue while walking, because it effectively erases that particular dialogue from your repertoire.

So, say a particularly annoying song keeps repeating, let it. The exercise will eliminate its earworm status, and it won't haunt you anymore.

The best results I saw with this were from a "surfer dude", who could barely finish a sentence because of his profound internal dialogue, so sounded like an airhead.

After a few weeks of this, his personality changed completely, as for the first time in memory he could finish something he started. He was speaking in paragraphs, and making sense, and loved the feeling. He looked clear and alert.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-09-30 14:54|| 2010-09-30 14:54|| Front Page Top

#15 After a few weeks of this, his personality changed completely, as for the first time in memory he could finish something he started. You say that as if it were a good thing. Complete personality changes sometimes have adverse effects (and affects).

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-09-30 15:07|| 2010-09-30 15:07|| Front Page Top

#16 Very interesting, Moose, I knew the Zen Buddhists were into meditation walks, but I hadn't heard about specific techniques. Unfocused eyes? That's probably why the pictures I've seen show them walking in groups in an enclosed garden.

Reminds me that there are at least three apps for the iPhone which use the camera to display an image of where you're going behind the txt you're composing :-) Talk about adhd....

Posted by KBK 2010-09-30 15:49|| 2010-09-30 15:49|| Front Page Top

#17 Anguper Hupomosing9418: It was a good thing. Before, he sounded like he was stoned all the time, and came across as a real dullard, and knew it. It was very frustrating for him.

Suddenly he could focus on things, get things done, think complex thoughts, etc. It brightened his whole day. Instead of being poor and dependent, he figured he could finally hold a steady job.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-09-30 16:24|| 2010-09-30 16:24|| Front Page Top

#18 KBK: It is not hard to navigate after a little practice, and you don't *have* to keep your eyes unfocused, if you need to get around some obstacle or other. I wouldn't limit it to either a small space or the slow, meditative gait of Buddhists, either. A normal pace, hither and yon is good to go. Sidewalks, open country, whenever and wherever.

Because there's so many loose dogs these days, I would also bring a canister of pepper spray.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-09-30 16:31|| 2010-09-30 16:31|| Front Page Top

#19 Because there's so many loose dogs these days, I would also bring a canister of pepper spray.
I hadn't thought of that. A 4-1/2 foot walking stick seems to impress loose dogs I've met, especially when you raise it as if to strike. Most dogs who have been around people much know what that means, and they will give you a wide berth. OTOH, I sometimes forget to switch carrying hands & wind up with one arm sore from carrying the stick for an hour.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-09-30 16:48|| 2010-09-30 16:48|| Front Page Top

#20 Nowadays, almost all corporal punishment (spankings, NOT beatings) has basically ceased to exist.

Does this explain the rise in ADD/ADHD expression?

Is it possible that corporal punishment and the pain and psychological effects (or perhaps merely the stimulation of a whack on the butt which interrupts the internal dialogue) release neurotransmitters which have at first a temporary and then a permanent effect in interrupting the cycle of mental activity which results in ADD/ADHD behavior?

Is it possible that repreated reinforcement of the notion of an ultimate effect (pain and shmae) to a cause (bad behavior) creates permanent pathways to short circuit or bypass the cascade of mental events which lead to the behavor in the first place?

Not advocating one way or the other, I'm just curious.

Posted by no mo uro 2010-09-30 17:17|| 2010-09-30 17:17|| Front Page Top

#21 "shame" not "shmae"

PIMF

Posted by no mo uro 2010-09-30 17:18|| 2010-09-30 17:18|| Front Page Top

#22 What's that? Me, myself, and I were having a discussion about the above pic...

That sounds like a good explanation of the practice of meditation. Just to sit down and unfocus.

And usually its not the 'pain' of the spanking which gets the child's attention but the fact of it. "Dad must be very upset to spank me!" which might be enough to focus their attention on the issue at hand. And of course if you overuse it they become numb.

Posted by CrazyFool 2010-09-30 17:36|| 2010-09-30 17:36|| Front Page Top

#23 I have no doubt whatsoever that internal dialogue is a taught phenomenon.

Then the similarity of meditation techniques across cultures and down thru the millenia is a remarkable co-incidence.

Meditation as a means of controlling the internal dialogue basically hasn't changed since the Buddha 3,000 odd years ago.

I am beginning to think that ADHD is a taught phenomenon also.

More likely a failure to learn socially acceptable means of controlling ADHD caused behaviour.

The human genetic pool has really changed very little in the last 70 years.

10 or 20 years ago I would have agreed with you, but we are discovering that the kind of copy variant genetic 'errors' are far more common than previously assumed. And these 'errors are certainly transmitted to a persons children. It's likely that an exponential increase in these kinds of genetic errors has occured over recent generations.

Posted by phil_b 2010-09-30 18:52|| 2010-09-30 18:52|| Front Page Top

#24 phil_b: Yes, but people have been chased by tigers since before they were people. So when they invented internal dialogue is anybody's guess.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-09-30 21:51|| 2010-09-30 21:51|| Front Page Top

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