Down syndrome: Researchers target a particular aspect

The protrusion of a neuron without Dscam protein (green) and that of a neuron with an abnormally high level of Dscam protein (red). 

The protrusions are overlaid on the fruitfly's equivalent of the human spinal cord (blue). Credit: Xin Wang 

University of Michigan researchers have determined how a gene that is known to be defective in Down syndrome is regulated and how its dysregulation may lead to neurological defects, providing insights into potential therapeutic approaches to an aspect of the syndrome.

Normally, nerve cells called neurons undergo an intense period of extending and branching of neuronal protrusions around the time of birth.

During this period, the neurons produce the proteins of the gene called Down syndrome cell-adhesion molecule, or Dscam, at high levels.

After this phase, the growth and the levels of protein taper off. However, in the brains of patients with Down syndrome, epilepsy and several other neurological disorders, the amount of Dscam remains high.

The impact of the elevated Dscam amount on how neurons develop is unknown. Bing Ye, a faculty member at U-M's Life Sciences Institute, found that in the fruit fly Drosophila, the amount of Dscam proteins in a neuron determines the size to which a neuron extends its protrusions before it forms connections with other nerve cells.

An overproduction of Dscam proteins leads to abnormally large neuronal protrusions.

Ye also identified two molecular pathways that converge to regulate the abundance of Dscam. One, dual leucine zipper kinase (DLK), which is involved in nerve regeneration, promotes the synthesis of Dscam proteins.

Another, fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), which causes fragile X syndrome when defective, represses Dscam protein synthesis.

Because humans share these genes with Drosophila, the DLK-FMRP-Dscam relationship presents a possible target for therapeutic intervention, Ye said.

Many genes are involved in neurological disorders like Down syndrome, and how molecular defects cause the disease is complex.

"But because of the important roles of Dscam in the development of neurons, its related defect is very likely to be an aspect of Down syndrome and it may be an aspect of the syndrome that can be treated," said Ye, an assistant professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the U-M Medical School.

Ye's next step is to test the effects of over-expression of Dscam in mice to see how it changes the development of the nervous system and the behavior of the animal.

Down syndrome occurs in about one in 830 newborns; an estimated 250,000 people in the U.S. have the condition, according to the National Library of Medicine's Genetics Home Reference.

Ye's study is scheduled to be published online June 5 in Neuron.

UK Pregnancy safety advice prompts criticism

The UK Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has been criticised for saying pregnant women may want to "play it safe" and avoid chemicals found in many common household products.

It says there is not enough information about the chemical risks to foetuses from cosmetics and food packaging.

Items which it suggests should be avoided include tinned food, ready meals, shower gel and even new cars.

Critics say the advice is unhelpful, unrealistic and alarmist.

The RCOG says its paper on the issue is informing women and filling a void - until now, there has been no official advice for pregnant and breastfeeding women to turn to.

It is unlikely that any of the exposures are truly harmful for most babies, say the report's authors, and, based on current evidence, it is impossible to give an accurate assessment of risk.

Nevertheless, they say women should make an informed choice and at the same time "not wrap themselves up in a bubble".

'Empower not scare'
They say pregnant women can be exposed to a complex mixture of hundreds of chemicals at low levels through the food they eat and the everyday products they use.

Chemicals, such as bisphenol A and phthalates, can leach into food packaging and containers, including food and beverage cans and plastic-wrapped ready meals, say the authors, Dr Michelle Bellingham and Professor Richard Sharpe.

What risks?

• Chemicals can enter your body through your skin or when you breathe, eat or drink
• Your baby is exposed if the chemical passes from your blood, through the placenta
• There is no consensus about which common household chemicals are harmful or whether they need to be avoided
• Bisphenol A is found in drink and food cans, while phthalates are found in plastics, carpets, fabrics, cosmetics and new cars
• Smoking and drinking too much alcohol can harm the baby
• Experts agree that there are some foods - certain fish, for example - that you should avoid or cut down on when you're pregnant because they might make you ill or harm your baby

Among other warnings:

• Cosmetic products and toiletries such as moisturisers, shower gel and sunscreen could, theoretically, also pose a chemical risk
• Cleaning products, air fresheners and non-stick frying pans can be added to the hazard list
• Pregnant women might also want to avoid decorating the new baby's room with fresh paint as breathing the fumes may be harmful

And do not assume natural or herbal products or remedies are safe, say the authors.

Prof Sharpe said: "For most environmental chemicals we do not know whether or not they really affect a baby's development, and obtaining definitive guidance will take many years.

"This paper outlines a practical approach that pregnant women can take, if they are concerned about this issue and wish to 'play safe' in order to minimise their baby's exposure."

He said women should not be alarmed and that the potential risks were likely to be small.

Dr Bellingham added that the paper was primarily aimed at health professionals advising women at ante-natal classes.

"We are trying to empower women, not scare them. There is a void at the moment in terms of information about chemicals," she said.

But many expert organisations were quick to criticise the RCOG advice.

Tracey Brown, of Sense About Science, said: "Pregnancy is a time when people spend a lot of time and money trying to work out which advice to follow, and which products to buy or avoid. The simple question parents want answered during pregnancy is: 'Should we be worried?' "

"What we need is help in navigating these debates about chemicals and pregnancy. Disappointingly, the RCOG report has ducked this."

Rosemary Dodds, Senior Policy Officer with the UK National Childbirth Trust, said it was unacceptable that pregnant women today were still having to make decisions without clear information on possible risks.

Janet Fyle, Professional Policy Advisor with the UK Royal College of Midwives, said pregnant women must take the advice with caution and use their common sense and judgement and not be unnecessarily alarmed about using personal care products, such as moisturisers, cosmetics and shower gels.

"There needs to be more scientific and evidence-based research into the issues and concerns raised by this paper," she said.

'No need to worry'
Dr John Harrison, director of Public Health (HPA) England's Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, said: "We agree that it would be sensible for pregnant women to avoid using hazardous chemicals such as pesticides or fungicides as a precaution, or in line with product information. However, there is no evidence to suggest that chemicals in items such as personal care products are a risk to public health."

Dr Chris Flower of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association (CTPA) said there was no need for anyone - pregnant or otherwise - to worry.

"The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has advised pregnant women to take a 'safety first' approach to cosmetic products and the good news is that there are already strict laws in place for cosmetics that allow us all to do just that."

He said a full safety assessment of every cosmetic product and all its ingredients was undertaken before a product could go on the market and, by law, all of the ingredients in a cosmetic product had to be listed on its packaging.

'Back to sleep' does not affect baby's ability to roll

Baby, keep on rolling. A campaign to put babies to bed on their backs to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has not impaired infants' rolling abilities, according to University of Alberta research.

Johanna Darrah

Johanna Darrah, a professor of physical therapy in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, says infants develop the ability to roll much the same today as they did 20 years ago when the "back to sleep" campaign was introduced and successfully reduced the occurrence of SIDS.

Her research answers fears that the back to sleep campaign, which recommends putting babies to bed on their back instead of their stomach, would hurt an infant's gross motor development, specifically the ability to roll from tummy to back and vice versa.

"Infant gross motor development hasn't changed that much in 20 years," says Darrah.

"The thought that babies first roll from their tummy to their back, before they go from their back to their tummy, does not appear to be the case. For most babies, they happen very close together."

Darrah first studied infant motor development in the early 1990s as a graduate student of former dean Martha Cook Piper when the pair published the Alberta Infant Motor Scale, an observational assessment scale used throughout the world to measure infant motor skill development from birth to walking.

More than 20 years later, Darrah revisited the work, studying the rolling abilities and motor skills development of 725 Canadian infants ranging in age from one week to eight months.

One of her goals was to see whether the norms identified and developed 20 years ago still represent the age of emergence of gross motor skills.

Darah notes there is some concern in the physical therapy community that babies develop movement skills like rolling from tummy to back at later ages because of reduced time spent on their stomachs.

Those concerns appear to be unfounded, she says, explaining that her results are particularly valuable for health-care practitioners specializing in early childhood development.

"Our results would suggest that gross motor skills emerge in the same order and at the same ages as 20 years ago. The environment is of course important to gross motor development, but the change in a sleeping position hasn't made much difference as to when babies roll from stomach to back."

Whooping cough cases rise as parents opt out of vaccination programs

Parents who opt out of vaccinating their children are putting their own kids and others around them at risk of serious illness, finds a study conducted in New York.

Almost twice as many parents in New York sought religious exemptions from vaccination in 2011 compared to 12 years earlier, and cases of whooping cough (pertussis) increased simultaneously, the study found.

Jana Shaw

"The reason for the rising rates for religious exemptions is unknown. Our preliminary results suggest that it's not for religious reasons alone," said study senior author Dr. Jana Shaw, an assistant professor of pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.

Counties with exemption rates of 1 percent or more experienced higher rates of whooping cough in both unvaccinated and vaccinated children—33 cases per 100,000 children on average compared to 20 cases per 100,000 in counties with lower exemption rates, the study found.

Statewide, the rate of exemptions grew from 0.23 percent to 0.45 percent between 2000 and 2011, Shaw said, noting that the total number is still low.

"But some counties are much higher—up to 5.58 percent," said Shaw, whose results were released online June 3 in the journal Pediatrics.

Read the full article here

More TV time equals higher consumption of sweetened beverages among children

Stina Olafsdottir

More time in front of the TV set and higher exposure to TV adverts may lead to increased consumption of sweetened beverages among children.

This is the conclusion of a new study from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The parents of more than 1,700 two- to four-year-olds in Sweden responded to questions about their children's TV and screen habits and consumption of sweetened drinks.

About one parent in seven indicated that they tried to reduce their children's exposure to TV adverts; the same parents stated that their children were less prone to drink soft drinks and other sweetened beverages.

Children of parents who were less strict about TV adverts were twice as likely to consume sweetened beverages every week.

The study was conducted in 2007–2010 as part of the EU research project IDEFICS – Identification and Prevention of Dietary and Lifestyle -Induced Health Effects in Children and Infants.

It reveals a very clear link between children's TV habits and their consumption of sweetened drinks. 'The children who watched more TV were more likely to drink these beverages.

In fact, each additional hour in front of the TV increased the likelihood of regular consumption by 50 per cent.

A similar link was found for total screen time,' says Stina Olafsdottir, PhD student at the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science and one of the researchers behind the study.

The study also found that children with higher exposure to food adverts on TV were more likely to consume sweetened beverages on a regular basis in a follow-up study conducted two years after the initial study.

However, exposure to TV adverts could not explain the link between TV habit and beverage consumption entirely.

It is therefore likely that the TV programmes watched also matter or that children simply enjoy drinking these types of beverages while watching TV.

The article Young children's screen habits are associated with consumption of sweetened beverages independently of parental norms is published in the International Journal of Public Health.

More information: Olafsdottir, S. et al. Young children's screen habits are associated with consumption of sweetened beverages independently of parental norms, International Journal of Public Health. link.springer.com/… 8-013-0473-2

Autism-related disorder: Researchers have found new role for mTOR in Tuberous Sclerosis

Researchers have found a novel role for a protein that has been implicated in an autism-related disorder known as tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). 

The disease, which affects 1 in about 8,000 children, manifests itself in the form of mental retardation in addition to severe epileptic episodes.

The disease is caused by mutations in two tumor-suppressing proteins, TSC1 and TSC2.

"Kids with this condition have benign tumors that grow all over the body," said Bernardo Sabatini  the Takeda Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study, "but we wanted to know what happened in the brain."

The researchers found that when mutations in TSC1 and TSC2 adversely affected a third protein, mTOR, this mutation increased brain activity, which can result in epileptic seizures.

Bernardo Sabatini

The findings were published in the May 8 issue of Neuron. A protein kinase, mTOR is responsible for controlling cell growth in many parts of the body and has been widely implicated in epilepsy and autism.

TSC1 and TSC2 normally repress the activity of mTOR to keep cell growth in check.

In the case of TSC, there are mutations in TSC1 or TSC2, and mTOR's ability to promote cell growth goes unchecked, resulting in tumors in regularly dividing cells.

"But neurons don't divide," said Sabatini. "So it was important to note the changes in these non-dividing cells."

The researchers hypothesized that mTOR's function in the brain related to homeostasis, the brain's ability to maintain a controlled level of electrical activity.

When there's a lot of electrical activity, a negative feedback system switches on to suppress activity.

Conversely, when levels are too low, other positive feedback pathways are engaged that bring the activity level back up.

"We went into this study with the specific hypothesis that mTOR would be part of the homeostatic loop in the brain," explained Sabatini.

In the case of TSC patients, they thought that mTOR was incapable of maintaining homeostasis and kept adding to the level of electrical activity, leading to seizures. "But we were wrong," he added.

Helen Bateup

"What we actually found was that mTOR is part of a positive feedback pathway," said Helen Bateup, HMS research fellow in neurobiology and first author on the study.

"When a cell is active, mTOR gets turned on more frequently and makes the cell even more active by reducing the amount of inhibition that the neuron receives."

In cells where TSC proteins are mutated, this positive feedback gets out of control, and the neuronal circuit remains overactive despite all the pathways that normally shut down activity being turned on.

"It's like the circuit is trying to keep itself quiet, but it can't," said Sabatini. "The out-of-control mTOR causes some cells to loss all inhibition, something that can't be compensated for by turning down excitation."

The researchers think this key difference in how mTOR operates, in working to promote electrical activity, is important for the disease because patients end up with high levels of dysfunctional mTOR that makes for highly active circuits prone to epileptic fits.

Furthermore, "we know that once a person has one seizure, they're much more likely to have more, a concept known as kindling," said Sabatini.

These findings are among the first to show that contrary to scientific consensus, mTOR does not play a part in everything.

"We have shown that one of the few things that mTOR does not seem to partake in is this negative feedback pathway," said Sabatini.

Working in both in vitro and in vivo mouse models, the researchers think the next step would be tease out the molecular pathway of mTOR's involvement in this positive feedback loop.

"It's also important to compare how this pathway works in normal brains versus a diseased model," added Bateup.

"A huge challenge when studying the brain is that there are so many feedback pathways that a mutation in one gene can result in a hundred other secondary changes," said Sabatini.

Rapamycin (Sirolimus), a drug currently used to prevent organ rejection following transplants, targets mTOR and brings activity levels back to normal.

"We could use the drug to restore this excitatory-inhibitory balance in the brain," said Bateup. "

A lot of drugs that treat epilepsy try to make inhibition more powerful but given that the primary problem here is that a group of cells has lost inhibition, that approach won't work," she added.

"What we might need is to target the excitation side. Or find ways of changing the biochemistry of the cells to make inhibitory synapses again."

"For this disease, this is the right time to start looking at human cells," said Sabatini.

"We have really good data from the mouse model and it would be a really nice test to see if the mouse model is really predictive of human disorder and if it's worth being continued."

More information: www.sciencedirect.… 62731300264X

Specific changes in brain structure after different forms of child abuse

Scientists have found a correlation between specific forms of maltreatment and thinning of the cortex in precisely those regions of the brain that are involved in the perception or processing of the type of abuse. Credit: Fotolia 

Different forms of childhood abuse increase the risk for mental illness as well as sexual dysfunction in adulthood, but little has been known about how that happens.

An international team of researchers, including the Miller School's Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., Leonard M. Miller Professor and Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, has discovered a neural basis for this association.

The study, published in the June 1 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, shows that sexually abused and emotionally mistreated children exhibit specific and differential changes in the architecture of their brain that reflect the nature of the mistreatment.

Researchers have known that victims of childhood abuse often suffer from psychiatric disorders later in life, including sexual dysfunction following sexual abuse.

The underlying mechanisms mediating this association have been poorly understood.

Charles B. Nemeroff

Charles B. Nemeroff and a group of scientific colleagues hypothesized that cortical changes during segments of mistreatment played a role.

To study these potential changes, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the brains of 51 adult women who were exposed to various forms of childhood abuse.

The results showed a correlation between specific forms of maltreatment and thinning of the cortex in precisely the regions of the brain that are involved in the perception or processing of the type of abuse.

Specifically, the somatosensory cortex in the area in which the female genitals are represented was significantly thinner in women who were victims of sexual abuse in their childhood.

Similarly, victims of emotional mistreatment were found to have a reduction of the thickness of the cerebral cortex in specific areas associated with self-awareness, self-evaluation and emotional regulation.

"This is one of the first studies documenting long-term alterations in specific brain areas as a consequence of child abuse and neglect," said Nemeroff, who is also Director of the Center on Aging.

"The finding that specific types of early life trauma have discrete, long lasting effects on the brain that underlie symptoms in adults is an important step in developing novel therapies to intervene to reduce the often lifelong psychiatric/psychological burden of such trauma."

Christine Heim

"Our data point to a precise association between experience-dependent neural plasticity and later health problems," said Christine Heim.

Jens C. Pruessner agreed that the "large effect and the regional specificity in the brain that corresponds to the type of abuse is remarkable."

The scientists speculate that a regional thinning of the cortex may serve as a protective mechanism, immediately shielding the child from the experience of the abuse by gating or blocking the sensory experience.

However, that thinning of the cortical sections may lay the groundwork for the development of behavioural problems in adulthood.

The results of this study extend the literature on neural plasticity and show that cortical representation fields can be smaller when certain sensory experiences are damaging or developmentally inappropriate.

Journal Reference:
Christine M. Heim, Helen S. Mayberg, Tanja Mletzko, Charles B. Nemeroff, Jens C. Pruessner. Decreased Cortical Representation of Genital Somatosensory Field After Childhood Sexual Abuse. Am J Psychiatry, June 1, 2013

SAP: The Berlin company supports or exploits autistic programmers?

When German software giant SAP said last month it plans to employ hundreds of autistic people as IT experts, the news was welcomed especially at a small Berlin computer consulting firm.

The pioneering company, Auticon, already employs 17 people who live with autism, the disorder characterised by difficulties with social interactions and exceptional abilities in specific fields.

Mueller-Remus

"Many people say that if a company like SAP said it makes sense... it's very good for us," said its chief Dirk Mueller-Remus. "That means it's something serious, solid."

SAP, which makes business software, said in May that after pilot projects in India and Ireland, it plans to employ hundreds of people with autism as software testers and programmers.

Its goal is that by 2020, people with autism will make up one percent of its worldwide workforce of 65,000.

Mueller-Remus created his far smaller company in November 2011 with the idea of "investing in the strengths" of these potential employees.

His son was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a variant of autism, as a teenager, and Mueller-Remus has long known that many people with autism excel in fields like programming or quality control.

"This is my talent," one of the employees, 27-year-old Melanie Altrock, stated matter of factly, sitting at her screen in a white-walled, modern top-floor office in western Berlin.

"Other people are interested in languages or math, for me it's computers. I don't just search for errors, I see them."

Auticon now has 25 staff and offices in Berlin, Munich and Duesseldorf, with plans for another in Hamburg. It looks to break even "by the end of the year", said Mueller-Remus.

"We wanted a normal consulting company, without subsidies, without donations, without funding from a foundation," he said, adding that the aim was to "combine social commitment and business".

"Today, after a little over a year, we have good customers like Vodafone, it's looking good," said Mueller-Remus.

But he also emphasised that working with autistic people can be "a very complex issue".

"We can make many mistakes because people with Asperger are very demanding people," he said.

"People with autism are very concrete, unequivocal," added Elke Seng, a "job coach" at Auticon who assists the employees in their relationships at work and with clients.

"There is no innuendo, there is only one or zero. It's rather nice," she smiled.

Friedrich Nolte, board member of the Federal Association for the Development of People with Autism, said "only five to 10 percent of people affected by autism find a place on the regular job market".

Mueller-Remus said that "their CVs often have brief episodes of work interspersed with long interruptions".

Often people with autism "have no situational awareness, may seem arrogant, have no interest in small talk, and are not interested in people because people are not logical," he said.

All of this can give rise to misunderstandings with sometimes serious consequences, he said.

In this context, the SAP initiative was widely applauded at the small company.

"That more people with autism can access a job is simply fantastic," said Seng, who confessed she finds her work "fascinating".

An autism specialist, psychiatrist Kai Vogeley of Cologne University Hospital, told a German medical journal that people with autism who work can "develop confidence in themselves".

He cautioned however that "certain conditions must be met for this to succeed".

"I hope that SAP knows how difficult it is," said Mueller-Remus. "If things are done well, you can really achieve great results."

Altrock, the autistic programmer, agreed.

"I have a full-time job, I take pleasure in it, I earn my own money and I have my own apartment," she said. "I'm glad it's like that."

Learning disability - Definition vary

In the United States and Canada, the term learning disability is used to refer to psychological and neurological conditions that affect a person's communicative capacities and potential to be taught effectively.

The term includes such conditions as dysgraphia (writing disorder), dyslexia (reading disorder), dyscalculia (mathematics disorder) and developmental aphasia.

In the United Kingdom, the term learning disability is used more generally to refer to developmental disability.

Someone with a learning disability does not necessarily have low or high intelligence, nor any innate inability to learn.

It just means this individual has an impairment to their ability due to a processing disorder, such as auditory processing or visual processing, that is detrimental to learning from traditional teaching methods.

Learning disabilities are usually identified by school psychologists through testing of intelligence, academics and processes of learning.

ADHD: Research shows how Ritalin affects Children's brains

Ritalin activates specific areas of the brain in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mimicking the brain activity of children without the condition, a new review says.

"This suggests that Ritalin does bring the brain [of a child with ADHD] back to the brain the typically developing kid has," said study author Constance Moore, associate director of the translational center for comparative neuro-imaging at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Analyzing data from earlier studies that looked at how children's brains were affected by doing certain tasks that are sometimes challenging for kids with ADHD, the researchers found that Ritalin (methylphenidate) was having a visible impact on three areas of the brain known to be associated with ADHD: the cortex, the cerebellum and the basal ganglia.

Constance Moore

The study could be helpful in diagnosing and treating children with ADHD, Moore said. "It may be helpful to know that in certain children, Ritalin is having a physiological effect in the areas of the brain involved with attention and impulse control," she said.

The research was published recently in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

Nine studies analyzed by the researchers used functional MRI to evaluate brain changes after children had taken a single dose of Ritalin.

The children were involved in different types of tasks that tested their ability to focus and inhibit an impulse to act.

For example, to observe the brain's reaction during a test of what is called "inhibitory control," a child was told that every time he saw a zero show up on a screen, he should push the button on the right; every time he saw an X appear, he should push the left button.

The children would then be asked to flip their responses, pushing the left button when they saw a zero.

"That's hard to do," Moore said, "because you've developed the habit [of pushing the other button], so you have to suppress your impulse.

If you do 20 zeros and keep pressing and then you see an X, most kids with ADHD will hit the wrong button."

In three out of five of the inhibitory control studies, Ritalin at least partially normalized brain activation in ADHD children.

To note how the brain reacted to a selective attention test, Moore said, children would first be asked, for example, what word they were seeing.

The word would be "red," and the colour of the type also would be red. Then they would be shown the word "red," but the colour of the type would be green.

In several studies, Ritalin affected activation in the frontal lobes during such inhibitory control tasks. Most of the studies included in the review were performed in the United States or the United Kingdom.

The majority of participants were adolescent boys, and all studies compared their results to healthy children of the same approximate age.

Because none of the studies looked at the correlation between ADHD symptoms and whether the child was taking Ritalin, there is no way to link the changes in brain activation with clinical improvement, Moore said.

"It's possible that kids who are not responsive to Ritalin may have brain changes too," she said. ADHD affects between 3 percent and 7 percent of school-aged children in the United States, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

Boys are more likely to have ADHD than girls. One expert was not surprised by the results.

Andrew Adesman

"The review article shows there is a consensus of well-designed imaging studies showing that [Ritalin] has an impact on the frontal cortex of the brain, where we have long believed these patients have issues," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioural pediatrics at the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park.

Adesman wondered if Ritalin may play a role in helping the brain mature. "Their data provides partial support for that," he said.

"But if anything, the medicine seems to help the brain look more normal and doesn't seem to do anything bad to it."

More information: Learn more about ADHD from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.