Warning: this post is way too long and shouldn't be read by anyone, under any circumstances. Unless the subject interests you. :)
HowToBe said:
http://eiriu-eolas.org/2011/01/21/meditation-boosts-part-of-brain-where-add-addictions-reside/ said:
Compared to a control group that underwent only relaxation training, brain scans of the students who meditated for a total of at least 11 hours during the month had slightly increased connections in the white matter that connects the anterior cingulate cortex to the rest of the brain; by some measures, these connections were also more robust. The ACC processes decisions, conflicts, and rewards, and deficits in that area have been linked to ADD, depression, dementia, addictions, and schizophrenia.
While the study was small in scale, the authors hope that the training might eventually be used for therapy or intervention for these conditions...
Well, meditation does help. Specifically, existing psychology publications and ADHD practitioners seem to give Mindfulness and TM good reviews. Personally, I find EE breathing methods relaxing and helpful for dealing with situations intended for calm, waiting type behaviors, whether waiting at redlights, in Doctor's office waiting rooms or whatever.
As far as I can tell though, the evidence for NEED of this kind of training is literally circumstantial, since that is simply how society is arranged and how so many circumstances are set up.
HowToBe said:
Executive functions sound like something a person might want to have! In the context of the Work, this sounds like the first directly relevant piece of information turned up by this research.
OK, so let's have a closer look shall we?
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Executive Functions of the Frontal Lobes: A New Perspective on an Old Story
On September 13, 1848, an apparently responsible, capable, and virile 25-year-old foreman of a railroad construction crew, named Phineas Gage, accidentally dropped a 131/4-pound iron tamping rod on a dynamite charge. The resulting explosion drove the rod through the left side of his face and out the top of the frontal portion of his cranium.
...
Seventy-four days after the accident, Phineas was able to return to his home 30 miles away. But there were discernible differences in Phineas’s behavior, not related to his health, general intelligence, or memory.
Physician J. M. Harlow (1868) was Phineas’s attending physician. Harlow wrote about the changes in behavior that happened after the patient's accident. Clearly, Harlow was associating Phineas’s most important change to the loss of his once shrewd business acumen and his former ability in “executing all of his plans of operation.”
Harlow’s description may have been the first in the written psychological literature for the frontal lobe metaphor: that the frontal lobes serve as
a kind of executive that makes decisions, forms goals, devises strategies for attaining these goals, plans, organizes, and changes and devises new strategies when initial plans fail.
Subsequently, this executive functions model has been developed by a scientific discipline known as neuropsychology. This field provides explanations for brain and behavior relationships based on studies of brain-damaged patients, clinical populations with suspected brain dysfunction, and healthy people.
Tests and measurements on the latter group (healthy people) help to define what normal or average functioning is so that behavior that deviates from standard functioning can be better defined. Neuropsychology is also broadly concerned with how the brain and its parts function and in identifying the symptoms of dysfunction.
One of the most prominent neuropsychologists of modern times was Russian Alexander Luria (1966), who wrote extensively about these executive functions of the frontal lobes.
Luria noted that patients with frontal lobe damage frequently had their speech, motor abilities, and sensations intact, yet their complex psychological activities were tremendously impaired. He observed that they were often unable to carry out complex, purposive, and goal-directed actions. Furthermore, he found that they could not accurately evaluate the success or failure of their behaviors, especially in terms of using the information to change their future behavior. Luria found that these patients were unconcerned with their failures, and were hesitant, indecisive, and indifferent to the loss of their critical awareness of their own behaviors.
Lezak (1982), a contemporary American neuropsychologist, wrote that the executive functions of the frontal lobes were:
...the heart of all socially useful, personally enhancing, constructive, and creative abilities. Impairment or loss of these functions compromises a person’s capacity to maintain an independent, constructively self-serving, and socially productive life no matter how well he can see and hear, walk and talk, and perform tests. (p. 281)
Welsh and Pennington (1988) defined executive functions in a neuropsychological perspective as the ability to maintain an appropriate problem-solving set for the attainment of a future goal. Pennington and Ozonoff (1996) view the domain of executive functions as distinct from cognitive domains such as sensation, perception, language, working memory, and long-term memory. Also, they see it as overlapping with such domains as attention, reasoning, and problem-solving “but not perfectly.” (p. 54). They also add interference control, inhibition, and integration across space and time as other aspects of executive function.
Their central view of executive function is a: context-specific action selection, especially in the face of strongly competing, but context-inappropriate, responses. Another central idea is maximal constraint satisfaction in action selection, which requires the integration of constraints from a variety of other domains, such as perception, memory, affect, and motivation. Hence, much complex behavior requires executive function, especially much human social behavior. (p. 54)
The rise of Homo sapiens: the evolution of modern thinking, By Frederick Lawrence Coolidge, Thomas Wynn, pg. 4 "Introduction", 2009, Wiley-Blackwell.
_http://books.google.com/books?id=Kds57ItEf38C&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22Welsh+and+Pennington+%281988%29+defined+executive+functions+in+a+neuropsychological+perspective%22&source=bl&ots=-9xRxsXbYd&sig=oqMUufpEyb3lHm2pglfBR5WOcYo&hl=en&ei=899ZTc-WGc3HtwfFr9TGCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Welsh%20and%20Pennington%20%281988%29%20defined%20executive%20functions%20in%20a%20neuropsychological%20perspective%22&f=false
A 6 page pdf of the Introduction:
_http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/32/14051525/1405152532.pdf
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So, Executive functions are said to be basically the management system of the brain.
Thomas E. Brown, PhD, clinical psychologist and leading researcher on executive functions, identifies six clusters of cognitive functions that constitute a way of conceptualizing executive functions.
Cluster 1) Activation: Organizing, Prioritizing and Getting Started on Tasks
A student with deficits in this area of executive functioning has difficulty getting school materials organized, distinguishing between relevant and nonrelevant information, anticipating and planning for future events, estimating the time needed to complete tasks, and struggles to simply get started on a task.
Cluster 2) Focus: Focusing, Maintaining and Shifting Attention
A student who is easily distracted misses important information provided in class. He is distracted not only by things around him in the classroom but also by his own thoughts. He has difficulty shifting attention when necessary and can get stuck on a thought, perseverating only on that topic.
Cluster 3) Effort: Regulating Alertness, Sustaining Effort, Processing Speed
A student who has a hard time regulating alertness may become drowsy when he has to sit still and be quiet in order to listen to a lecture or read material that isn’t very interesting and stimulating. It is not that he is overtired, rather he simply can’t sustain his alertness unless he is actively engaged. In addition, the speed at which a student takes in and understands information can affect school performance. Some students with ADHD process information very slowly, while others may have trouble slowing down enough to process information accurately.
Cluster 4) Emotion: Managing Frustrations and Regulating Emotions
A student with impairments in this area of executive functioning may have a very low tolerance for frustration and be extremely sensitive to criticism. Difficult emotions can quickly become overwhelming and emotional reactions may be very intense.
Cluster 5) Memory: Using Working Memory and Accessing Recall
Working memory is a “temporary storage system” in the brain that holds several facts or thoughts in mind while solving a problem or performing a task. Working memory helps an individual hold information long enough to use it in the short term, focus on a task and remember what to do next. If a student has impairments in working memory, he may have trouble remembering and following teacher directions, memorizing and recalling math facts or spelling words, computing problems in his head or retrieving information from memory when he needs it.
Cluster 6) Action: Monitoring and Self-Regulating Action
Individuals with this impairment often seem to have deficits in the ability to regulate their behavior, which can significantly impede social relationships. If a student has difficulty inhibiting behavior he may react impulsively without thought to the context of the situation, or he may overfocus on the reactions of others by becoming too inhibited and withdrawn in interactions.
_http://add.about.com/od/adhdthebasics/a/Execu-Functions.htm
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Barkley's model:
Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized authority on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adults. Dr. Barkley has specialized in ADHD for more than 30 years and is currently a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina.
In 1997 when Barkley first presented a variation on Strang and Rourke's 1983 Executive Functions model to explain ADHD, Barkely chose to incorporate into his model the existing body of literature of brain function, and to emphasize the similarity between
symptoms of pseudopsychopathy (right frontal lobe damage) and ADHD. The right-frontal-lobe brain damaged individual has been shown to experience increases in motor activity, talkativeness, and a lack of tact and restraint,(19) symptoms commonly associated with ADHD. Animals with frontal lobe damage cannot adapt to new situations or environments, while humans with such lesions similarly experience extreme difficulties in situations requiring problem solving and unique solutions(19).
Because he assumes ADHD to be synonymous with this type of brain damage," Barkley(3) concluded, rather incorrectly, that persons with ADHD are also less capable of creative thought, and stated this hypothesis concerning ADHD and creativity explicitly in several of his writings.
In the September, 1998 edition of Scientific American magazine, Barkley spells out his version of the model:
Russell Barkley states that the Executive Functions can be grouped as a set of 4 mental activities:
1) working memory: Holding information in mind while working on a task, even after the original stimulus is gone. said to be crucial to timeliness and goal-directed behavior. Also provides the means for hindsight, forethought, preparation and the ability to imitate the novel behavior of others.
2) internalizing self-directed speech. Said to allow one to reflect to oneself, to follow rules and instructions, to use self-questioning as a form of problem solving and to construct "meta-rules", the basis for understanding rules about rules - all quickly without tipping one's hand to others. The idea is to make this self-talk private, preventing others from knowing one's thoughts.
3) Controlling emotions, motivation and state of arousal. Said to help individuals achieve goals by delaying or altering potentially distracting emotional reactions to a particular event and to generate private emotions and motivations. Those who rein in their immediate passions can behave in more socially accepted ways.
4) Reconstitution. Said to encompass two separate processes: breaking down observed behaviors and combining the parts into new actions not previously learned from experience. Said to give humans a great degree of fluency, flexibility and creativity and allows them to propel themselves toward a goal without having to learn all the steps by rote. Also said to permit children, as they mature, to direct their behavior across increasingly longer intervals by combining behaviors into ever longer chains to attain a goal.
Barkley states the essence of his ADHD model thusly:
"In the early years [In all children], the executive functions are performed externally: children might talk out loud to themselves while remembering a task or puzzling out a problem. As children mature, they internalize, or make private, such executive functions, which prevents others from knowing their thoughts. Children with ADHD, in contrast, seem to lack the restraint to inhibit the public performance of these executive functions."
...and he states it again:
All 4 Executive functions become internalized during typical neural development in childhood. As normal children grow and develop, they develop the capacity to behave covertly, to mask some of their behaviors or feelings from others. Either through faulty genetics or embryonic development, ADHD children have not attained these covert abilities and therefore display too much public behavior and speech.
Barkley then covers Ritalin and how it improves the Executive functions and mentions the justified results:
"...they tend to be liked better by other children and to experience less punishment for their actions, which improves their self-image."
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Thom Hartmann states the he and his son is diagnosed ADHD. He's a prolific author on ADHD and the inventor of the Hunter vs. farmer theory of the condition.
Hartmann (with co-author Vaudree Lavallee) has this to say about Barkley's doings:
If brain damage research had been used to build the Hunter/Farmer hypothesis, "ADD: A Different Perception" may have explored the difficulties associated with being a right-frontal-lobe-damaged individual in a world taken over by people with left-frontal-lobe-damage. Described in non-disorder (difference) terms, left-frontal-lobe-damaged "Farmers" could be seen as objective (rather than indifferent), exerting emotional self-control (rather than showing little overt emotion), able to show enough self-regulation to remain silent (rather than showing little or no verbal output), and speaking only when spoken to (rather than failure to initiate conversations).
However, this silly analogy was never used in "ADD: A Different Perception," or any subsequent Thom Hartmann book or article for that matter, because Hunters are not right-frontal-lobe brain damaged persons, and Farmers are not left-frontal-lobe brain damaged persons: each are, instead, two end-points on a continuum of human variability.
To understand the role of brain pathology research in validating the Executive Functions model, we need to first determine what the Executive Functions model would look like without reference to brain damage. The Executive Functions model would still compare the more liberal and flamboyant ADHDers unfavorably to the more conservative and restrained "statistical norm." Americas "brick" factory-like schoolhouses would still be seen as the epitome of human civilization and accomplishment. And, like Phillip Rushton,(11) the Executive Functions model would still see a negative correlation between IQ and promiscuity.
In summary, we would still have an ethnocentric (almost Aryan) commentary of genetic endowment differences.
Without these highly questionable (and, in the opinion of these authors, outright flawed) ideological underpinnings, however, what remains of the Executive Functions model is simply
a theory of individual variation.
The Executive Functions model tends to focus on post base-line variation in human response to environmental stimulation while ignoring important differences in how such stimulation may initially be experienced by the individual. We agree that after controlling for base-line differences between Hunters and Farmers, there may be important executive function differences among Hunters and among Farmers. Additionally, these "executive function" differences may turn out to be one among the many variables which help determine whether ADHD will produce an entrepreneurial success or a chronic criminal.
As the Hunter/Farmer hypothesis predicts, there are base-line differences in the ways individual Hunters and Farmers each experience and cope with depression, boredom, frustration and joy. However, these base-line differences do not fully explain why one Hunter (or Farmer for that matter) may or may not experience depression at a dysfunctional level.
Instead, the Hunter/Farmer hypothesis suggests that it's the driving need or hunger for aliveness which animates most ADHD/ADD behaviors, and executive function is only a small (but significant) variable that determines how this need or hunger is satisfied (through socially adaptive means, such as a high-stimulation job in an emergency room, or socially maladaptive means like becoming a barroom brawler).
Seen in this light, Barkley's so called executive system may be nothing more than a fight or flight response mechanism, acting like a rubber band that exerts its influence at both ends of the ADHD continuum. Evidence which indicates that having a "happy temperament" as an infant is associated with improved prognosis for Hunters while some environmental factors, such as having experienced abuse, are associated with negative life chances(13) lends support to the prospect that the Executive Functions model is a theory of within-Hunter variation rather than of Hunter/Farmer differences.
To recapitulate, if one were to divide the population into groups based on individual differences in tolerance of (or desire for) novelty, the individuals in each group would still vary in both their tolerance of and their exposure to adversity or stress.
Theoretically, those in each group whose threshold for stress has been exceeded may exhibit many of the cognitive difficulties associated with the so-called executive functions.
From: ADHD - disorder or difference?, Thom Hartmann & Vaudree Lavallee
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Pro-ADD Studies?
In the newsletter:
Every Day With ADHD, Kerry Cooney & Steve Oldham quote Thom Hartmann:
No studies I know of have looked for ADHD children who are functioning well in school, or ADHD adults who are functioning well in life (although we all know of examples of the latter, from actors to entrepreneurs to inventors to artists). Because publications of the psychology and psychiatry industries concern themselves only with pathology (there is no listing for "normal" in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of The American Psychiatric Association, for example), it should not surprise us that they find it. Nor should it surprise us that they wouldn‘t bother to look for or at those who are not "failing" in society, and thus not potential customers.
Several studies have provided us with hints that ADHD may be useful somehow, somewhere, sometime. One of the most interesting was a Washington University study in which ADHD persons were tested against "normal" controls for their ability to handle emergencies: what the study’s authors called "urgent tasks."
The abstract reads:
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been proposed to represent adaptive responding to highly urgent situations in primitive hunting. In the present study, 31 adults with self-reported ADHD were compared with 33 normal adults on a newly developed, 10-item measure of urgent task involvement. The internal consistency of the scale was suitable, and the group with ADHD scored significantly higher than the control group, as predicted.
While this was the first study to demonstrate that people with ADHD had some advantage in some circumstances over others, many previous studies offer tantalizing glimpses which the researchers chose not to pursue.
For example, one study found that while "normal" children’s ability to read or perform tasks requiring vigilance deteriorated when they were "distracted" by high levels of external stimulation, ADHD children’s scores actually improved.
Another study found that boys with ADHD calmed down when they were in highly stimulating environments, whereas "normal" children would crash-and-burn under such circumstances.
An article in The Journal of Creative Behavior by University of Georgia’s Bonnie Cramond asks the question in its abstract: "There are so many similarities in the behavioral descriptions of creativity and ADHD that one is left to wonder, could these be overlapping phenomena?" The article goes on to suggest that a thorough search of the literature in both fields would imply the answer is yes.
It concludes:
Perhaps individuals who have trouble with verbal learning but have a very imaginative, visual manner of thinking will be considered at the forefront of innovation in our society rather than as problem learners. Taken together, the results of these studies and others like them are indicative of a childhood syndrome characterized by hyperactivity and high intelligence, in which personality variables, modes of cognitive representation and creativity are intimately bound.
Also printed here: Thom Hartman, "Whose order is being disordered by ADHD?
Originally published in Tikkun Magazine _http://www.tikkun.org
This newsletter has a bunch of helpful tips and advice for raising an 'ADHD' child:
_http://everydaywithadhd.com.au/user-assets/ENews/Newsletter_005.pdf
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According to the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), a child has ADHD if, for a period of six months, he or she exhibits at least six symptoms from a list of 14. Among them: "often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities," "is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli," "often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat," and "often blurts out answers before questions have been completed." (In the full listing, please note the precise language used in the DSM-IV definition, such as "often," "excessively" and "extraneous").
Parents are frequently surprised to learn that the clinical observation of these symptoms, over the span of a 10-minute doctor's consultation, is the sole basis of an ADHD diagnosis. After all, aren't all kids "easily distracted" some of the time? Isn't a certain amount of hyperactivity a natural part of childhood?
_http://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/dangerous-distraction
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Similarly, those who don’t care to look for ADHD among the ranks of the successful would overlook Harvard psychiatrists and professors of psychiatry, Drs. John Ratey and Edward Hallowell, authors of the best-selling book Driven to Distraction, in which they state explicitly that they each "have ADD."
It was never the strength of the science, however, that carried the day for the biomedical view of ADHD. All of a sudden there was a legitimate medical diagnosis that explained away uncooperative children, eased parental guilt, relieved teachers' anxiety, and lined the pockets of pharmaceutical companies and HMOs. Is it any wonder that this diagnosis caught on? As the opening sentence of an early book on the subject, Edward Hallowell and John Ratey's Driven to Distraction, prophetically (though unironically) observed, "Once you catch on to what this syndrome is all about, you'll see it everywhere."
_http://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/dangerous-distraction
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Check out this Consensus Development Conference on ADD/ADHD 1998:
Even a panel of Doctors can’t seem to describe ADD/ADHD.
Note the part of the video where this panel of 'experts' are unable to define the symptoms or diagnosis of ADD or ADHD. I didn't watch the whole thing. I was kind of embarrassed for them, I guess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgYQfvjMD8
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Here's Hartmann's summary:
In summary, we find the work of those who attempt to position ADD/ADHD entirely as a pathology, "a failure of evolution," or a character trait of "no value whatsoever," to be more rooted in thinly-veiled pseudo-morality and eugenics than in science. Vast bodies of literature -- as well as common sense and the positive personal experiences of millions with ADHD -- are conveniently ignored, overlooked, or dismissed. In Barkley's words we find contempt and a reductionist, mechanistic world-view that allows only for pathology and non-pathology.
By obsessively focusing on negatives and refusing to acknowledge any evidence of value in ADHD, anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances, the increasingly small circle of "pure pathology" advocates are bringing only pain, power-based relationships (between parents told to "take charge" of their ADHD children, as well as between professionals and their clients), and the most massive labeling, segregation, and ostracizing seen in our public schools since the early days of "separate but equal" education among the races.
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So, it seems we have at least two gene clusters: one of which includes the DRD4 variation and the R7 DAT alle. The other without the variation. And seemingly correlated with two behavior clusters that researchers seemed to be mainly concerned with: The 'AD/HD' behavior cluster and the 'Normal' behavior cluster.
Of the gene in question: AD/HD researchers call it the AD/HD gene, naturally. Israeli scientists call it the "novelty seeking" gene. Others have called it the "alcoholism" gene. It's also been called the "Celtic" gene. Geez, you'd think these people would pool their research to find out they are all talking about the same thing.
Note: It seems from the better research out there, the ancient Celts were mentioned because they seem to have had the same or similar behavior clusters that are currently associated with the 'ADHD' gene cluster.
Of the Celtics, Laura writes:
Laura said:
However, studying what is available closely, one gets the impression of a dynamic, somewhat undisciplined people. The Celts were proud, imaginative, artistic, lovers of freedom and adventure, eloquence, poetry, and arts. You can always discern the Celtic influence by the great artistic talents of these peoples.
One of the Celtic languages was said to be Gaelic and we even use the Irish-Gaelic word:
Eíriú Eolas for the Breathing/Meditation program!
I wonder what Barkley would say about the creativity of the Celts? Oh, wait. They were wiped out. Probably by the same venomous mindset Barkley displays with his direction that "they must be authoritatively controlled!"
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So, is N-Game addictive or potentially addictive? I think that when one begins playing the game for some useful, educational purpose, it would be OK. But the player would have to evaluate any benefits him or herself.
For someone with 'ADHD', it is likely that while playing, when a line is crossed where the player starts out with "want to" but continuing the game becomes "must", then the normal stress of concentration becomes an unhealthy kind of stress which may begin to build to this:
monotonic said:
N-back is not nearly so much an indulgence as other "brain games". It is exhausting. No one would play it unless they had some other reason. I find my automatic reaction has always been to try and avoid or put off playing it in any way possible, especially for as long as 25 minutes.
...eventually triggering a neurochemical flooding when the individual's stress tolerance is reached. For me and most other ADD folks I know, this unhealthy kind of mental stress can actually be painful and
require neurochemical self-calming if the game or activity is to be continued. But that doesn't mean the stress is gone - just masked.
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Edit: additions for clarity and for spelling.
