The stimulants Ritalin and Adderall have been used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for decades, but research shows they don’t act on the brain’s attention circuitry as had long been assumed.Instead, the medications primarily target the brain’s reward and wakefulness centers, according to a new study published in the journal Cell. The research, which used brain imaging data from almost 5,800 children ages 8 to 11, also pointed toward the important role that lack of sleep plays in the disorder.Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“When I first saw the results, I thought I had just made a mistake because none of the attention systems are changing here,” said Benjamin Kay, one of the study’s authors and a professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.It’s not that the stimulants are ineffective.“The paper clearly shows that they help,” said Nico Dosenbach, another of the authors and a professor of neurology at the university. “They help kids who have a diagnosis of ADHD do better in school and do better on tests, and they help kids who don’t sleep enough ― and a lot of Americans don’t sleep enough.”Although ADHD is often thought of as a childhood condition, an estimated 15.5 million American adults have the diagnosis; roughly half of them received the diagnosis in adulthood. The disorder afflicts an estimated 7 million children, ages 3 to 17. The prevalence among American children rose from 6.1 percent in 1997 to 1998 to 10.2 percent in 2015 to 2016, according to one study.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe exact cause of ADHD remains unknown, and there is no single test for the condition.“Despite the name ‘Attention Deficit,’ ADHD is a multifaceted disorder in which diffic …
