Well, there are some prominent docs who don't believe the traditional ADHD classification.
Are you familiar with Dr. Daniel Amen's Healing ADD?
He recognises 7 types, and one is indeed characterised by switching attention problems. He calls it Over-Focused ADD: difficulty with shifting attention. Worries and holds grudges. If things don't go their way, they get upset. They tend to be argumentative, oppositional, and see all kinds of things wrong in situations and people.
Some folks in my family have that plus social enxiety and poor interpersonal skills. I'm still not sure if that's really ADHD or rather a form of borderline personality disorder or maybe a mild form of Aspergers.
But, I would like to hear more about your theory. Do you have a link?
Yeah, I know about Amen - alas, I also know that he's a somewhat conspicuous fellow - not really the Dr. Russell Barkley -type, who is more respected in the scientific communit - I'm among those that feel Amen can alas, not be trusted - and his results are fairly weak.
That doesn't mean that he may not have some valid ideas and observations - but unless someone else reports similar things, it's hard to take them seriously.
Cheers for being interested tho', mate - I'd love to hear what you think of my own ruminations on the subject matter.
Here's my original, very thin and insubstantial post on the matter:
Right, I'm experiencing the symptoms of Pathological Rumination right now, so I CAN'T be made to dig up all of the quotes and studies by Dr. Russell Barkley, but suffice to say...
It's got NOTHING to do with Autism - the people with autism are experiencing a different, but similar deficit in attention.
Pathological Rumination is what Dr. Barkley calls it - the inability to to execute attention in the first place - we overthink everything, to the point of complete mental and physical fatigue.
Basically, our minds are stuck at PREPARING to go, but never getting to GO,GO,GO,GO,GOOOO!!! Which the hyperactives, the people with REAL ADHD have.
There are 5-6 aspects of attention, according to the cognitive model currently used by science - and SCT seems to correlate with deficits in one of them, ADHD seems to correlate with deficits in another.
That actually means there are 4 more aspects to disturb... I'm guessing that what some of these autists are experiencing, is indeed a disturbance in a completely different aspect.
Hold on... I'm getting a second wind from writing this... it's hard...!
Ah - here we go.
https://en.wikipedia...#Clinical_model
- Focused attention: The ability to respond discretely to specific visual, auditory or tactile stimuli.
(Deficits in this one correlates to ADHD)
- Sustained attention (vigilance and concentration): The ability to maintain a consistent behavioral response during continuous and repetitive activity.
(Deficits in this one correlates to SCT)
- Selective attention: The ability to maintain a behavioral or cognitive set in the face of distracting or competing stimuli. Therefore, it incorporates the notion of "freedom from distractibility."
- Alternating attention: The ability of mental flexibility that allows individuals to shift their focus of attention and move between tasks having different cognitive requirements.
(THIS seems to be the autistic problem. It's a completely different thing, ya'll! Btw, if this is correct... that these are all independent attention-disorders... then maybe the autists on anotherdrum have some HOPE! Because, this implies it's something similar to ADHD and SCT - and NOT autism! Well, that, or they have a comorbid attention-disorder, which is certainly common, lot's of ADHD-ers who have Autism as well. Guess it makes sense.)
- Divided attention: This is the highest level of attention and it refers to the ability to respond simultaneously to multiple tasks or multiple task demands.
What I find interesting is how Dr. Russell Barkley mentions in a video that there is SIX dimensions of Attention, yet the only references I can find, all mention only FIVE dimensions. Am I misinterpreting the info? Or just not looking into it hard enough? Other than the 5 dimensions above, what possible other aspects of Attention could there be, that could be impaired?
Also, which disorders would you say fits the best into Selective Attention and Divided Attention -deficits? The Divided Attention dimension seems the toughest to pin down, since that's such a general and easily disturbed aspect - it may also be the LEAST impairing of all of these disorders - since it's also the highest level, a level which probably until only just recently, would never have been much of a problem in every day life. This one could be just about anything...
I'm also curious if Selective Attention could correspond to the CHOLINERGIC aspects of adhd... hmm... there's some proof that a Cholinergic subset of ADHD exists, hence why there's a development of nicotinergic medications to treat ADHD - and since classic ADHD seems to respond the best to Dopaminergics, while SCT seems to respond the most to Norepinephrinergics, then it stands to reason that the peeps that respond to Cholinergics are a different disorder in themselves - something else than ADHD or SCT.
No idea what those symptoms would be though... what ARE the symptoms of disturbances in Cholinergic receptors? Are there any variations of traumatic brain injury that causes impairment in the cholinergic systems? I figure that would be an area to look into, to start figuring out who these people are. (Dr. Barkley mentions how some PFC-injuries are highly similar to ADHD - with over-eating, difficulty to control impulses and emotions, and how injuries to the Parietal Lobe seems to correspond to the symptoms of SCT - spaciness, slowness, et c)
Thank you for bringing that up again. I am going to read the paper as soon as I can. At this point however I am seriously considering Aspergers more than anything else because of my comorbid symptoms: Hashi, celiac and food allergies. I believ and this is still a theory that gut permability is linked to autism and that ADHD is often a misdiagnosis and Aspergers is the real disease behind ADHD. When I went to college it was so stressful I quit 2 months in and had to undergo surgery just months later. I believe that the stress exacerbated my leaky gut and that that set of a chain reaction that would play out over several years and give me ADHD, food sensitives and what not. Gluten is inflamming the brain via the proven gut-brain vagus nerve (this is scientifically proven to exist today and is no more pseudo-science).
Therefore right now I am focusing my entire research on exactly 2 supplements which I have identified as the most helpful: Low dose natrexone and its counterpart Tianeptine. There are already some threads on longecity regarding this which I found to be very interesting.
Also it would explain why SSRIs make problems worse for a lot of people as they increase Serotonin. People on the autistic spectrum already have very high serotonin. This also explains my personal reaction to St Johns Wort, Rhodiala and 5-HTP: Very bad to mixed reaction.
Asperger would also explain a large part of my life, why I have focused interests (still a variety of interest but always focusing on 1 entirely for 1 to 5 years) and have trouble making eye contact and have been dependent on other people for much longer than my peers. I also recently dated a women who as it turned out later has aspergers and we have a lot in common.
Cheers for wanting to have a look - I'm actually feeling rather like a "life-failure" right now, so I was actually projecting a bit of hostility in the last post, just trying my best to control it and mask it.
You certainly make a good case for a connection between the gut and Autism - but I'm not so sure that connection is equally clear in ADHD - sure, Tryptophan metabolism is affected by diet, but not to much of an extent - it's all hardcoded in there, not much one can do with the soft solutions - you're going to need compounds that alter the process substantially.
I would agree that you do show some symptoms of Autism, but there is also the problem that some symptoms are comorbid with other disorders, wholly different from both ADHD and Autism - SCT for instance, can be misdiagnosed as BOTH, since it has features of both.
(fewer friends, impaired coordination, impaired attention, et c)
But in reality, it is neither.
Why I think differentiating between variations and disorders is important is exactly the fact that it does matter though - SCT can't really be treated with the same compounds as ADHD - that's a fallacy, and the treatment-results bear it out. There's any number of us populating Longecity and Reddit, throwing our woes around about how the traditional ADHD-treatments just aren't working - and about how different we are as patients, compared to the hyperactives.
If you listen to Russell Barkley, you will hear him mention this - about how he finds it difficult to treat SCT, and how he has observed that the response and success-rate of stimulant-therapy just isn't there for SCT.
Even if the same receptors are implicated, the location and function of the structures where they are situated, alters the results of a medication substantially - if SCT is impairment in the Parietal Lobe, while ADHD is impairment in the Frontal Lobe, then medications are not going to have the same results.
The way Barkley uses the difference between Anxiety and Depression to describe the difference between ADHD and SCT is certainly an apt one - both are treated with SSRI's and SNRI's, but the results of both on Anxiety is substantially less than on Depression - there are also medications that do affect Anxiety, which have very, very little effect on depression - like Gabaergics, Benzodiasepines and Z-analogues.
(newer research also implies that while there is some weak evidence that Depression is caused by low serotonin, there is actually SUBSTANTIAL evidence showing Anxiety being caused by HIGH Serotonin - which mean Serotonin-enhancing drugs may actually be counterindicated in treating Anxiety - which may be why SNRI's are more efficient in treating anxiety, while the same can't be said for Depression - SSRI's are still the king of the hill there.)
Btw, in closing, have you looked into NitroMemantine any? That's actually one of the few novel compounds that showed promise in both Autism AND adhd. It was extensively discussed on these boards about 1-2 years back (I can proudly say I was one of the folks drumming up interest in the compound) - only problem of course being that the nitrate-group makes it MUTAGENIC...
(lol! you don't wanna' turn into a ninja-turtle, dude!)
But still, perhaps there are then other NMDA-antagonists which could be useful in treating Autism, yeah? Nitromemantine is why I started looking into KYNA, since it seemed to be a far more elegant and gentle method to increase NMDA-antagonism - and lo and behold... AV-101 does seem to have far less side-effects than Memantine or Nitro-memantine, and even greater effect!
Certainly not the right compound for Schizo's tho... HRRRrrMm! 0__0
(seriously, if someone Schizo takes AV-101... then that may well be the most dangerous compound on Earth to them - it could trigger a psychotic episode in a matter of minutes - no different from stuff like Ketamine or Psilocybin - one false move...! And you'd be essentially dead - damaged in a way that no antipsychotic treatment will be able to help you.)