Stephen Faraone (he/him/his)

Could your ADHD benefit from a "Kinetic Prescription"...? adhdevidence.org/blog/exercise-…

A new study highlights how chronic boredom in ADHD acts as a biological signal, urging us to redesign our schools and workplaces for better engagement: adhdevidence.org/blog/the-neuro…

Your skull is made of separate plates at birth, which allows them to shift as your brain grows. When those plates fuse too early (craniosynostosis), pressure builds. A new study suggests that pressure may have lasting effects on brain development, including a significantly higher risk of ADHD. adhdevidence.org/blog/early-sku…

Children with ADHD are disproportionately likely to end up involved with child welfare services. Does medication change that? adhdevidence.org/blog/populatio…

@StephenFaraone One of your best Steve

Imagine a 19-year-old scrolling TikTok. She watches a creator list five "signs you have undiagnosed anxiety." She recognizes three in herself. By the end of the week, she's describing herself as anxious to her friends. A month later, she's avoiding situations she used to handle fine. What went wrong? In a new paper by my PhD student Dasha Sandra, titled "Why mental health awareness can harm: Converging explanations for a societal problem", we argue that well-meaning mental health awareness can backfire, and we identify how. Four separate literatures (concept creep, nocebo effects, prevalence inflation, and illness self-labeling) have been circling the same problem from different angles. We show they converge on three mechanisms: 1.Awareness lowers the threshold for what counts as a disorder. 2. It trains people to scan their inner lives for symptoms and reinterpret normal distress as pathology. 3. Once someone adopts an illness identity, they behave in ways that confirm and deepen it. The evidence is wide. Learning that loneliness is harmful makes solitude feel worse. Learning that stress is harmful worsens well-being and performance. Awareness videos about fake conditions like "wind turbine syndrome" produce real headaches. Trigger warnings raise anticipatory anxiety without reducing distress. This does not mean awareness should stop. It means awareness can have unintended consequences, including manufacturing the suffering it tries to prevent. Inoculating people against these mechanisms works, and we already have evidence it does. Link to paper: michael-inzlicht.squarespace.com/s/The-psycholo…

1 in 3 stimulant users experience psychotic symptoms. 1 in 500 prescribed stimulant users do. That gap tells you almost everything about how context shapes risk. New post breaks down two major studies on ADHD meds and psychosis. adhdevidence.org/blog/psychosis…

Can physical activity actually improve motor skills in kids with ADHD? And, if so, is there a certain type of exercise that works best? instagram.com/p/DXXPHAQDoCC/…

If your child has ADHD and struggles with handwriting or coordination, exercise may help. A new meta-analysis found meaningful improvements in motor skills when kids with ADHD followed structured exercise programs: adhdevidence.org/blog/can-certa…

This study ranked ADHD treatment therapies with 92% statistical confidence. One of the top performers? Supported by exactly one previous trial. This is what happens when sophisticated methods meet a thin evidence base. Our new blog explains the gap. adhdevidence.org/blog/saudi-stu…

Anyone with lived experience can tell you that not all ADHD presents the same way, but now there's brain imaging data to back that up; A new study found 3 reproducible neurobiological subtypes with different symptom profiles, emotional regulation patterns, and neurotransmitter associations. Read more: adhdevidence.org/blog/finding-o…

For a more accessible read, check out our blog explaining this study: adhdevidence.org/blog/why-do-so…

Our research found that genetics may influence whether patients continue their ADHD medication, but it's a complex relationship: adhdevidence.org/blog/why-do-so…

New meta-analysis: exercise interventions produce medium-to-large improvements in impulse control for kids and teens with ADHD, and control groups showed basically no change over the same period. The evidence quality is low, but every single included study pointed in the same direction. adhdevidence.org/blog/meta-anal…

New Swedish study of 1,000+ infants finds babies who experience newborn seizures are 2x more likely to develop ADHD and 3x more likely to be diagnosed with autism. Early brain health matters more than we realized. adhdevidence.org/blog/swedish-n…

A talk with Kate Brownfield about ADHD medication, misinformation, co-occurring conditions, and evidence-based treatment; Our conversation aims to help parents better understand what’s supported by research, what gets overstated online, and how to think more clearly about treatment decisions for kids and teens with ADHD: youtube.com/watch?v=yHNqzo…

Our new study in Translational Psychiatry finds that genetics play a modest but meaningful role in why people with ADHD discontinue stimulant treatment: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41764167/

New meta-analysis: even a single workout session produces moderate improvements in impulse control for adults with ADHD, with large improvements in those not on medication. Exercise as a tool for adult ADHD may be severely under-utilized: adhdevidence.org/blog/meta-anal…

🧠 Meta-analysis: people with ADHD are about twice as likely to report non-suicidal self-harm. This reflects overlapping challenges like impulsivity, emotional regulation, and co-occurring mental health conditions. Awareness and support matter. adhdevidence.org/blog/meta-anal…