News and Research on ADHD

ADHD was originally known as a hyperkinetic reaction of childhood.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that the American Psychiatric Association formally recognised it as a neurological condition, and in the 1980s, the diagnosis became known as “attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity.”

Much research has been done to better understand ADHD. While researchers acknowledge that some genetic variants increase a person’s risk of ADHD, they are yet to discover a causal relationship with a particular gene or set of genes. 

Furthermore, due to the complexity of the condition, there has been suggestion that a person’s environment also has a significant effect on how likely they are to develop ADHD. More research is being done to understand whether some genes require environmental triggers to switch on.


Here you'll find some of the latest local and global news and research from Google News to help us understand more about ADHD.


Below you'll see a summary of the research pieces from New Zealand and overseas, which links to the original source, and opens in a new tab.


New Zealand research


Overseas research