How Ritalin Works

Stimulant medications like Ritalin have long been used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Though Ritalin is known to be effective, only recently has the medical community begun to understand how it works.

"In a paper published online this week in Biological Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology researchers David Devilbiss and Craig Berridge report that Ritalin fine-tunes the functioning of neurons in the prefrontal cortex - a brain region involved in attention, decision-making and impulse control - while having few effects outside it."

This is good news for parents who worry that Ritalin could be damaging to other parts of the brain.. While high doses of the medication could still pose problems, clinically accurate (low) doses are proving to be safe and effective. Source: MediLexicon News

Labels: medications, research, stimulants