Do stimulant medications cause brain damage? It’s a frequent concern among people who avoid stimulant treatment for ADHD, both adults and parents of children with the condition.Science shows that prescription stimulants do not cause brain damage.
In fact, research suggests that stimulants have a protective effect on the ADHD brain.Perhaps people who fear stimulants assume the medication’s potency exerts too strong a force on the brain after prolonged use.
But dozens upon dozens of brain imaging studies show no anatomical, connectivity, or activation damage after stimulant treatment in the short and long term.A robust review, for example, found that the brains of individuals with ADHD who were treated with stimulants looked more like the brains of people without ADHD than those of unmedicated people with ADHD.1 The review, the authors wrote, “finds no evidence that stimulant treatment negatively impacts brain development or function.
In contrast, these studies suggest that stimulant treatment attenuates the brain abnormalities that have been associated with ADHD.”This data suggest that people who do not receive treatment may be consigned to more severe and debilitating ADHD as a result.
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