"Mike Raiford" <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:4b06a783$1@news.povray.org...
> On 11/19/2009 11:36 PM, clipka wrote:
>> Neeum Zawan schrieb:
>>> On 11/19/09 19:52, clipka wrote:
>>>>> How much of it would have to do with placebo? ;)
>>>>
>>>> Probably nil. ADD med is pretty mean stuff that you should positively

One theory of the underlying causes of ADD that I've studied that seems to 
have a lot of merit is that people with the condition have a cerebral cortex 
that runs at a different "speed" from the cerebellum. This causes things to 
be out of sync, in a manner of speaking. One thing that I found out is that 
people with ADD often seem to be clumsy. In my case, I run into walls 
sometimes. What happens is that the part of my brain that analyzes changes 
in condition ("Turn coming up here, need to change direction") processes the 
information too fast. So, my body begins trying to turn the corner slightly 
before I get there, while my brain has moved on to the next problem.

Most ADD medications are stimulants, some of them closely related to 
amphetamines (I take Adderall). What they appear to do for us is to speed up 
the parts of the brain that need to be, so that everything is in sync again. 
This leads to a reduction in stress and tension, so most people with ADD 
find that their medication seems to calm them down, counter-intuitively 
(there are those who think Ritalin makes a person sleepy when using it, for 
example). For people without the condition, they'll act like the strong 
stimulants that they are. Unfortunately, there's a lot of abuse of these 
meds... my understanding is that there are schools where it's popular to try 
to purchase ADD medications to help stay awake to get through final exams.

It would be awfully hard (thought it's certainly not inconceivable) to get a 
placebo to work on someone with ADD. I think you'd have to have the 
condition to appreciate how completely it affects your life. I don't think 
you could get a person who's had ADD/ADHD all his life to understand what it 
would be like to be "normal" well enough to get the placebo to work. It 
really is like stepping through a curtain and realizing that you've been 
seeing the world in a vastly different way from most people. :-)

--
Jack

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