ADVANCES & CONSIDERATIONS IN PHARMACOTHERAPY OF ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD)
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ABOUT AUHTORS
Noorul Hasan*, Mohd. Mujahid, Badruddeen, Nesar Ahmad, Shahla Parveen, Shaikh Zohrameena, Zafar Khan
Faculty of Pharmacy,
Integral University, Lucknow, U.P. (India)
*noorulkhan999@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurobehavioral condition primarily affecting children but regularly persisting into adolescence and adulthood. The symptoms must present in multiple settings ie home, school, work, be inappropriate for developmental level and interfere with the individual’s level of functioning, social development, learning processes, and quality of life. There are three presentations of ADHD i.e. inattentive, hyperactive and combined. There is a substantial pharmacopoeia available for safe and effective treatment of ADHD. CNS stimulants like methylphenidate, amphetamine are recommended as first-line medication therapy for children. It includes various class of drugs like centrally acting sympathomimetic, anti-psychotic, anti-depressant (SSRI), alph2 agonist and some newer agent like atomoxetine in the treatment of ADHD. ADHD remains the only highly prevalent, nondegenerative neuropsychiatric disorder for which effective medications remediate the principal cognitive disturbances in concert with clinical efficacy. Therefore, deeper insight into the neural mechanisms of cognitive remediation may serve to advance treatment development not only in ADHD, but across a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders in which cognitive dysfunction is a cardinal feature and a strong predictor of clinical outcome. All effective medications for ADHD act on one or both of the major catecholamine neurotransmitter systems in the brain. These 2 systems, which arise from subcortical nuclei and use of norepinephrine (NE) or dopamine (DA) as transmitters exert strong modulatory effects on widely distributed cortical–subcortical neural circuits, with important effects on cognition, mood and behavior in both health and illness