Approximately 7 million children in the United States between the ages of three and 17 have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 50% of children with ADHD also have severe problems with impulsive aggression and persistent irritability, according to James Waxmonsky, professor of psychiatry and University Chair in Child Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. These children can experience intense and extended emotional outbursts, which can severely impact how they function at home, at school and with peers. While certain medications can help reduce these outbursts in some children with ADHD, there's no good way to predict which children will respond well - and which won't - based on their behavior, genetics or background alone.
Now, with a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, a team of researchers, led by Waxmonsky, is setting out to identify better and more precise ways to predict which children with ADHD - who also have high levels of aggression and irritability - will benefit from medication treatment. The researchers will examine how their brains process reward and frustration in order to understand why some children show improvements with ADHD medication while others do not.
"At the end of the day, it's all about helping children improve," Waxmonsky said. "Aggression is one of the most common reasons children present for emergency assessment so identifying safe, well-studied treatments that are effective could have a sizable impact."
