Stimulant ADHD medications work differently than thought | WashU Medicine

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.
“I prescribe a lot of stimulants as a child neurologist, and I’ve always been taught that they facilitate attention systems to give people more voluntary control over what they pay attention to,” said Kay, who treats patients at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “But we’ve shown that’s not the case. Rather, the improvement we observe in attention is a secondary effect of a child being more alert and finding a task more rewarding, which naturally helps them pay more attention to it.” Kay said the findings point to the importance of addressing inadequate sleep in addition to considering stimulant medication for children being evaluated for ADHD.