Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder - a Community Presentation (NWL)

Dr. Michael Stevens from the Institute of Living will present on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) based on the most recent published research in the scientific community. ADHD is one of the most common childhood disorders, affecting an estimated 10% of children in the US, with implications for both short and long-term individual outcomes. Despite this prevalence, there is a high rate of misconceptions about ADHD in both the general population and among clinicians – this presentation will introduce and address some of the most common misconceptions.  

This presentation also summarizes the current state of knowledge in the scientific community about ADHD and its treatments.  Dr. Stevens will define key concepts related to diagnosis, describe neuroscience models of ADHD and how they’ve changed over the past decades, and describe what evidence exists that supports which treatments are known to work and which have little support.  The presentation will conclude with a brief overview of his ADHD research that is currently ongoing at the Clinical Neuroscience and Development Lab at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center.

Dr. Stevens has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health since shortly after he received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1999. His NRSA-funded postdoctoral work at the University of Connecticut Health Center focused on neuropsychological and neurobiological study of adolescent risk factors for addictions. After joining the UCHC faculty as an assistant professor and starting adolescent-related clinical and research programs, Dr. Stevens left in 2002 to help develop the just-founded Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center. There, Dr. Stevens received a K23 Career Development award from the NIMH to provide him the opportunity to gain expertise in fMRI and EEG methods. He received his academic appointment in the Yale Department of Psychiatry in 2003, was promoted to Adjunct Associate Professor in 2009, and Full Professor in 2017. During his time in these roles, he has been the Principal Investigator or a co-investigator on dozens of large NIH-funded grants that use neuroimaging, EEG, neurocognitive, and genetic methods to better understand a variety of different neuropsychiatric disorders. These include ADHD and other disruptive behavior disorders of childhood, Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Illness, Autism, psychosis, TBI, and recently both alcohol-related addiction as well as the effects of cannabis on the brain. Much of this research work focuses on the developmental period starting at puberty until early adulthood and incorporates both concepts and methodology that examine distributed neural networks in the brain. Most recently, Dr. Stevens has become keenly interested in using neuroimaging tools to accelerate the development of novel, non-pharmacological clinical interventions such as cognitive training, rTMS, and tDCS.