Date Posted: March 21, 2018
Contributing Authors: Alison E. Lenet, MD and Melissa R. Arbuckle, MD, PhD
Overview: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common psychiatric condition diagnosed in children that has widespread implications for social, cognitive, and emotional development. We present here a Facilitator’s Guide for teaching trainees about presentations of ADHD in children, the basic underlying neurobiology, and basic strategies for treatment. This is not intended to be a comprehensive review of ADHD and all of the phenomenology and different treatment options, but rather an introduction for how we can think about the underlying neuroscience of ADHD and how this links to phenomenology and treatment approaches. Content-based learning objectives include that the learner will be able to describe: 4 symptom domains of ADHD, basic information about underlying circuitry for these domains, and basic treatment strategies for ADHD. Additional learning objectives include that the learner will: appreciate how ADHD may impact a child socially and academically, appreciate how different underlying brain pathways can lead to different clinical presentations and be able to apply this in a creative storytelling exercise, and have fun learning about neuroscience!
Author Affiliations: Dr. Alison Lenet is a PGY6 resident in child psychiatry at the NewYork-Presbyterian (Columbia/Cornell) program and was a 2017-18 NNCI scholar. Dr. Melissa Arbuckle is from the Department of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute. The National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative is a collaborative effort with the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT) and receives support from the NIH (R25 MH10107602S1 and R25 MH08646607S1), the Society for Biological Psychiatry, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. We thank Amanda Wang and Alex Tymchak from Phoenix Digital Health for their support in creating the videos associated with these modules and Hanna Stevens, Joseph Cooper, and David Ross, who were consultants on this project. ©National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative.
