There May Be 3 Different Types Of ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is believed to affect 2.6 million people in the UK.

Symptoms can include struggling to stay consistently attentive and finding impulse control difficult.

But according to a brain imaging study published in JAMA Psychiatry recently, it looks like the condition, currently treated as a monolith, could have three different “biotypes” (subtypes).

These, the paper said, have “unique clinical-neural profiles”.

The researchers looked at both the chemical and structural patterns in the minds of children with ADHD.

After looking at hundreds of participants’ scans and neurochemical signals, they found that not all ADHD brain activity seemed to behave the same way.

Three different patterns seemed to emerge.

That could be helpful for people with ADHD, the researchers said, because it “may ultimately create a path toward developing personalised therapeutic strategies,” rather than one generalised treatment.

1. Severe-combined with emotional dysregulation
2. Predominantly hyperactive/impulsive
3. Predominantly inattentive.

Speaking to ADHD UK, consultant psychiatrist Dr Shyamal Mashru described emotional dysregulation as “the difficulty of an individual to modulate or regulate their emotional responses to a situation… What that means is, if there is a sad situation, something that would make anyone feel sad, for example, the emotional response in an ADHD individual would appear extremely amplified.”

ADHD hyperactivity, meanwhile, can include having high energy levels, feeling restless, fidgeting, and “restlessness, even at inappropriate times, and difficulty engaging in quiet activities,” the National Institute of Mental Health said.

Impulsivity can involve “acting without thinking or having trouble with self-control,” they added.

And Dr Mashru said that ADHD inattentiveness doens’t always look like you might expect.

Instead, he said, “It’s not a deficit of attention. It’s a lack of regulation of attention. So attention is being dispersed in multiple different things”.

A person with ADHD might find it hard to control their focus on one thing, but this could be due to multiple demands on their attention rather than an absence of focus.