What she seems to be saying is that ADHD sufferers are self-medicating by using street drugs. She advocates pharmaceuticals.
I wish there would be more research on how the brain becomes that way to begin with and what can be done to prevent it, without the use of medications.
Interesting that she says drug addiction is a disease of the human brain. I think of a chicken-and-egg approach--how would one know to take drugs to deal with-a brain disease? What do people do who have no access to drugs? Do they adapt? Get worse?
Dr. Volkow's work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a disease of the human brain. As a research psychiatrist and scientist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate the toxic effects of drugs and their addictive properties. Her studies have documented changes in the dopamine system affecting the actions of frontal brain regions involved with motivation, drive, and pleasure and the decline of brain dopamine function with age. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and the behavioral changes that occur with aging.
