OH SHIT –
Dec, 24, 2025 – Brain areas affected by the drugs control reward and wakefulness, not attention. In the U.S., about 3.5 million kids ages 3 to 17 take an ADHD medication, a number that has increased as more children have been diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder.
Stimulant medications have long been thought to treat ADHD by acting upon regions of the brain that control attention, but a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis casts doubt on that thinking. Led by Benjamin Kay, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology, and Nico U. Dosenbach, MD, PhD, the David M. & Tracy S. Holtzman Professor of Neurology, it shows for the first time that these drugs act primarily on the brain’s reward and wakefulness centers, rather than on its attention circuitry.
The findings, published Dec. 24 in Cell, suggest that prescription stimulants enhance performance by making individuals with ADHD more alert and interested in tasks, rather than directly improving their ability to focus. The researchers also found that stimulant medications produced patterns of brain activity that mimicked the effect of good sleep, negating the effects of sleep deprivation on brain activity.
