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Surprising 16-year-long ADHD study proves researchers' hypothesis completely wrong

The findings from first-of-their-kind, long-term ADHD studies keep rolling in and surprising researchers along the way.

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Scientists continue to be surprised by the findings of long-term ADHD studies.

Our understanding of ADHD has come a long way in just a few short years. Though it wasn't even formally recognized as a medical condition until the 1960s, by the time the 90s rolled around, diagnoses and stimulant prescriptions were extremely prevalent. (Raise your hand if you grew up in the era of "Anyone who struggles in school gets Ritalin!") Today, diagnoses and treatment are a lot more thoughtful and individualized, and there are more options for treatment and therapy including but not limited to stimulants like the well-known Ritalin. Even with all these advancements, though, we still have more to learn.

A new long-term study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry has proven to be an excellent next step in getting a better understanding of the disorder, showing that a lot of what's commonly believed or assumed about ADHD is incomplete or just flat-out wrong.

Researchers studied 483 participants who were diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and continued to assess them for a period of 16 years. The study's authors wanted to get a sense of how ADHD symptoms might change over time.

What the researchers found surprised them. In most participants, symptoms of ADHD fluctuated greatly over the years rather than staying consistent. What surprised them even more were the environmental factors that seemed to play a role in those fluctuations.

adhd, children, kids, mental health, neurodivergent, brains, psychology, medicine, research, medical studies ADHD brains work in mysterious ways, but we're starting to get a clearer picture. Photo by BUDDHI Kumar SHRESTHA on Unsplash

Researchers expected that greater life demands—like more responsibility at work, a heavier workload at school, major life changes, etc.—would exacerbate ADHD symptoms. What they found was the opposite.

It makes sense that a person that struggles with inattention or hyperactivity might have more trouble focusing when they have more "going on" and more distractions to pull them in different directions. It was a huge surprise to the researchers that, actually, people's ADHD symptoms seemed to ease up when life got hectic.

“We expected the relationship between environmental demands and ADHD symptoms to be the opposite of what we found,” study author, professor, and clinical psychologist Margaret H. Sibley explained. “We hypothesized that when life demands and responsibilities increased, this might exacerbate people’s ADHD, making it more severe. In fact, it was the opposite. The higher the demands and responsibilities one was experiencing, the milder their ADHD.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

I have a 4-year-old with ADHD and the findings totally track for me based on what I've witnessed in our own life.

We find it's actually easier to be in perpetual motion sometimes—out running errands, doing activities, visiting friends and family—versus staying put too long. When we're just relaxing at home, that's when she tends to start bouncing off the walls! Her ADHD tendencies come out strong in these quiet periods, including what we sometimes playfully refer to as her "hoarding" dozens of coloring sheets or surrounding herself in giant piles of toys, blankets, and stuffed animals; thereby making a huge mess in the house.

Doing nothing or doing very little is not often a restful state for people with ADHD. Typically, people with ADHD experience more background noise than neurotypical brains—so a quiet, seemingly restful environment can sometimes amplify racing thoughts, negative self-talk, and impulsive behavior versus dampening it. You know how kids sometimes act out in school not because they're not smart, but because the material is actually too easy for them and they're bored? Something similar is at play in both of these scenarios.

Of course, as always in science, you have to be careful assuming causation from the findings.

adhd, children, kids, mental health, neurodivergent, brains, psychology, medicine, research, medical studies The results show that staying busy may actually help relieve some ADHD symptoms. Annie Spratt/Unsplash

It's important to note that the results of the study don't definitively prove that being busy causes a decrease in ADHD symptoms.

“This might mean that people with ADHD perform their best in more demanding environments (perhaps environments that have stronger immediate consequences, like needing to put food on the table for a family or pay rent monthly). It also might mean that people with ADHD take more on their plate when their symptoms are relatively at bay," Sibley says. Either way, the correlation is certainly strong and worthy of more study.

In the meantime, the study's authors think the results could be viewed in a hopeful light for people just learning to manage their ADHD. “If you’re a doctor talking with a patient who is first getting diagnosed with ADHD, it’s a huge help for that person to hear the message that, ‘You’re going to have good years and not-so-good years, but things can go really well for you if you can get the right factors in place,'” Sibley said. As a parent, I can imagine how reassuring that would have been to hear early on in our own process.

adhd, children, kids, mental health, neurodivergent, brains, psychology, medicine, research, medical studies We still have so much to learn. Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

With ADHD diagnoses on the rise, more and more research is being conducted. For example, a recent long-term study out of Sweden was just published linking use of ADHD medication with a reduction in traffic crashes, general injuries, and criminal behavior. That's a strong argument for continuing to hone in on accurate diagnoses and treatment for people who need it, as it clearly benefits society as a whole when done properly!

We're learning more and more about what the factors that affect positive ADHD outcomes are—what might exacerbate symptoms and what types of things can help—and we're starting to get a clearer picture of how people can manage this challenging disorder.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Researchers hacked 5 people's brains so they could see a new and impossible color

The new color 'olo' is neat, but the technique behind it could be groundbreaking.

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Only five people in the world have seen the mysterious color "Olo"

Color is one of the great joys of being alive. The brilliant blue sky, the green grass, the exotic pinks and purples and teals in coral or tropical fish. Soaking it all in is truly a feast for the eyes, and some studies even show that certain colors can trigger specific emotions in people. Orange may evoke feelings of joy, and red may conjure feelings of love, while blue may have a calming effect.

One of the most interesting things about colors, though, is that they are finite. Though the world is full of undiscovered plants, creatures, and even elements, the entire color spectrum is known and documented. Due to the nature of light in our universe and how it reflects off of physical objects, all perceived color must be created by some combination of the primary colors (blue, green, and red — yes, green, not yellow!). There are essentially unlimited combinations, but they all exist on a known spectrum — different hues and shades of pink or emerald or orange.

However, a team of researchers recently decided to push the limits of human perception. They "hacked" participants' retinas to allow them to see an impossible color.


color, green, blue, color wheel, physics, light, wavelengths, scienceThe paint companies are dying to know the secret formula for the new color.Giphy

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, developed a new technique called "Oz," which would allow them to activate specific cones in the retina. Cones are light-sensitive cells that respond to different wavelengths of light. When the three types of cones are activated in different ways, our brains perceive colors.

One fascinating bit of background is that the "M" cone, which typically responds strongest to green (Medium wavelength), can not naturally be activated without also activating the Long and Short cones. So even the purest green on the planet would also, to a smaller degree, stimulate the parts of our eyes that are mostly correlated with red and blue.

retinas, eyes, oz, retina scan, retina cones, vision, colorsA close-up of the human eye. Swapnil Potdar/Unsplash

The team wanted to find out what would happen if they could isolate and activate only the M, or green, cone using the new technique.

The result? The five participants reported seeing an absolutely unreal, brilliant shade of green like nothing they had ever experienced. Imagine a bright green laser cranked up to the highest saturation and brilliance possible, the purest and brightest green your brain could possibly comprehend. Participants noted that a bright green laser pointed looked "pale" in comparison to the new color.

The name of the new, impossible color? Olo, or 010 (indicated zero stimulation of the L and S cones and full stimulation of the M cones).

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

It's fair to wonder, if olo is impossible and can never naturally exist without manual stimulation of the retinal cones, what's the point of the experiment?

The introduction of a "new color" is certainly interesting and makes for a good headline, but the real value of this study lies in the future applications of the Oz technique.

The research team hopes that the detailed retinal maps they have developed, along with their ability to stimulate specific rods and cones in the eye in any combination, will enable major breakthroughs in the study and treatment of various visual impairments.

For example, Oz could one day cure color blindness or unlock new treatments for cataracts or glaucoma. It could even play a role down the line in curing certain types of blindness. Isn't it wild how our understanding of how our eyes perceive color tells us so much?

But those days are a long way off, for now. In the meantime, only five people in the world have experienced the brilliance of olo, and the rest of us will just have to imagine it.

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Researchers have been secretly studying who gets "the ick" and what it might say about you

"The ick" has been around for ages but never measured and analyzed. Until now.

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The ick: A sudden revulsion to a romantic partner over trivial behavior.

The first time I heard of "the ick" came from watching the hit Netflix show Nobody Wants This. In the show, Kristen Bell's character suddenly develops the ick for Adam Brody's character (whom she's dating) after a series of relatively minor faux pas as he's trying to impress her parents. He wears a cheesy sports coat and makes one-too-many corny jokes, to be precise. She suddenly finds herself repulsed by him, and insists that no one has "ever come back from the ick."

Adam Brody's character eventually wins her back over with an impressive display of emotional maturity, but it was a fascinating sequence nonetheless. It brought the term to the attention of a lot of viewers and catapulted it even higher into the zeitgeist.

A new study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences aims to shed light on this phenomenon, and the people who experience it.


dating, relationships, break ups, divorce, the ick, dating studyThe Ick even made it to JeopardyGiphy

For starters, let's define "the ick," or rather, let the authors of the study do it:

"The 'ick' 'is a sudden and visceral aversion to a romantic partner, often triggered by behaviors or characteristics that superficially signal incompatibility or low mate quality."

In other words, it's when a person says or does something that really skeeves you out or turns you off. It sounds a little silly, but the ick can be extremely powerful and tough for people to shake. That's because, as the authors note, whatever the behavior is that icked you out might signal that you're not a good match for this person, or that they're just a low quality partner in general. So in a sense, it's an evolutionary protection mechanism.

It seems extremely harsh that our bodies would be trained to reject partners at the slightest misstep, but in evolutionary terms, it makes a lot of sense:

"A false-positive error—accepting an incompatible partner—can drain resources, reduce reproductive success, and carry long-term relational consequences, whereas a false-negative error—rejecting a compatible partner—results in a missed opportunity but poses fewer immediate risks," the study says.

So if the guy you were into shows up in a fedora one day, it's probably best to show him the door posthaste. Better safe than sorry.

What causes the ick?


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

It's usually brought on by things that, on the surface, seem pretty unimportant. We're not talking about cheating, emotional abuse, or being a bad person. It's much subtler than that. The researchers use lots of examples from TV to make their point:

"In Seinfeld ... Jerry is disgusted by his date's 'manly' hands; and in Sex and the City ... Carrie is revolted by a lover after learning he wrote her a love song."

But where the actual studying part of the study comes in is that the authors began inhaling TikTok videos where users discussed their experiences getting the ick, and they began rigorously categorizing the responses.

The real-life examples are even more nit-picky, like someone who licks their fingers before turning a page. Girls "tripping in public." A guy wearing jorts, or bending over too far and accidentally showing his butt crack. Or, in Adam Brody's case, wearing a sports coat. In many cases these simple (and hilarious!) things are death knells for a relationship once the ick sets in.

The researchers broke ick-inducing behaviors down into a few buckets: Gender incongruence, public embarrassment, or physical appearance. Believe it or not, physical appearance was not the most common! Gender incongruence — guys doing girly things, girls doing manly things — was the biggest category of ick-driving behavior. One girl said the guy she was dating gave her "the ick" when he laid his head on her shoulder affectionately.

Wow...

What getting "the ick" might say about you

disgust, inside out, the ick, dating, relationships, break ups, studies, scientific researchPrime candidate for The IckGiphy

The next part of the study involved recruiting participants who were willing to answer questions about their own experiences with this phenomenon. After thorough interviews, researchers narrowed down three traits that seem to indicate people are more likely to get "the ick,":

Narcissism. People who like to be the center of attention or otherwise display narcissistic tendencies were highly correlated in this study.

Perfectionism. Not perfectionism of the self, mind you! But people who scored highly on questions related to holding the people around them to exceptionally high standards were more prone to "the ick."

Disgust sensitivity. People were more likely to have experienced "the ick" if they answered strongly on questions relating to feeling disgust even outside of a dating or interpersonal sense. People who get exceptionally grossed out by disgusting things are more likely to experience revulsion at minor behaviors in a romantic partner.

Any of those things sound like you? If you're feeling judged, don't. Remember, getting icked-out by a partner isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could be an evolutionary response trying to protect you from making a bad choice (like having a baby with a weirdo). Though it's also important to remember this biological strategy also discards a lot of potentially great partners, so listen to your ick wisely — you might just want to give fedora guy another chance, after all.

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A juice company dumped orange peels in a national park. Here's what it looks like now.

12,000 tons of food waste and 21 years later, this forest looks totally different.

In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs approached an orange juice company in Costa Rica with an off-the-wall idea. In exchange for donating a portion of unspoiled, forested land to the Área de Conservación Guanacaste — a nature preserve in the country's northwest — the park would allow the company to dump its discarded orange peels and pulp, free of charge, in a heavily grazed, largely deforested area nearby.

One year later, one thousand trucks poured into the national park, offloading over 12,000 metric tons of sticky, mealy, orange compost onto the worn-out plot. The site was left untouched and largely unexamined for over a decade. A sign was placed to ensure future researchers could locate and study it.


16 years later, Janzen dispatched graduate student Timothy Treuer to look for the site where the food waste was dumped.

Treuer initially set out to locate the large placard that marked the plot — and failed.

The first deposit of orange peels in 1996.

Photo by Dan Janzen.

"It's a huge sign, bright yellow lettering. We should have been able to see it," Treuer says. After wandering around for half an hour with no luck, he consulted Janzen, who gave him more detailed instructions on how to find the plot.

When he returned a week later and confirmed he was in the right place, Treuer was floored. Compared to the adjacent barren former pastureland, the site of the food waste deposit was "like night and day."

The site of the orange peel deposit (L) and adjacent pastureland (R).

Photo by Leland Werden.

"It was just hard to believe that the only difference between the two areas was a bunch of orange peels. They look like completely different ecosystems," he explains.

The area was so thick with vegetation he still could not find the sign.

Treuer and a team of researchers from Princeton University studied the site over the course of the following three years.

The results, published in the journal "Restoration Ecology," highlight just how completely the discarded fruit parts assisted the area's turnaround.

The ecologists measured various qualities of the site against an area of former pastureland immediately across the access road used to dump the orange peels two decades prior. Compared to the adjacent plot, which was dominated by a single species of tree, the site of the orange peel deposit featured two dozen species of vegetation, most thriving.

Lab technician Erik Schilling explores the newly overgrown orange peel plot.

Photo by Tim Treuer.

In addition to greater biodiversity, richer soil, and a better-developed canopy, researchers discovered a tayra (a dog-sized weasel) and a giant fig tree three feet in diameter, on the plot.

"You could have had 20 people climbing in that tree at once and it would have supported the weight no problem," says Jon Choi, co-author of the paper, who conducted much of the soil analysis. "That thing was massive."

Recent evidence suggests that secondary tropical forests — those that grow after the original inhabitants are torn down — are essential to helping slow climate change.

In a 2016 study published in Nature, researchers found that such forests absorb and store atmospheric carbon at roughly 11 times the rate of old-growth forests.

Treuer believes better management of discarded produce — like orange peels — could be key to helping these forests regrow.

In many parts of the world, rates of deforestation are increasing dramatically, sapping local soil of much-needed nutrients and, with them, the ability of ecosystems to restore themselves.

Meanwhile, much of the world is awash in nutrient-rich food waste. In the United States, up to half of all produce in the United States is discarded. Most currently ends up in landfills.

The site after a deposit of orange peels in 1998.

Photo by Dan Janzen.

"We don't want companies to go out there will-nilly just dumping their waste all over the place, but if it's scientifically driven and restorationists are involved in addition to companies, this is something I think has really high potential," Treuer says.

The next step, he believes, is to examine whether other ecosystems — dry forests, cloud forests, tropical savannas — react the same way to similar deposits.

Two years after his initial survey, Treuer returned to once again try to locate the sign marking the site.

Since his first scouting mission in 2013, Treuer had visited the plot more than 15 times. Choi had visited more than 50. Neither had spotted the original sign.

In 2015, when Treuer, with the help of the paper's senior author, David Wilcove, and Princeton Professor Rob Pringle, finally found it under a thicket of vines, the scope of the area's transformation became truly clear.

The sign after clearing away the vines.

Photo by Tim Treuer.

"It's a big honking sign," Choi emphasizes.

19 years of waiting with crossed fingers had buried it, thanks to two scientists, a flash of inspiration, and the rind of an unassuming fruit.


This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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