ADHD and energy theory

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]All right, so today we're talking about ADHD and a new brain energy theory. So this paper argues that ADHD may not just be an attention deficit, as we already know it's much more complicated than that, but instead partially an issue with how the brain manages and sustains energy over time. So what they're mainly talking about is the brain's executive functioning system, so the prefrontal cortex, which we know handles things like attention, planning, working memory, emotional regulation, and impulse control. So the researchers here propose that people with ADHD may have more difficulty sustaining energy in those systems consistently. So the issue isn't always I can't do the task, instead it's more I can't reliably maintain the brain state needed to keep doing the task. I kind of like this theory because it explains a lot of what people with ADHD sometimes explain, and it's hard to explain, where it's like some days you do really amazing for a couple hours, and then you feel like you crash. Some days your brain feels more like you're having a good brain day, some days more foggy and not as easy to do things. And it help explains why we struggle with boring tasks, but hyperfocus on interesting things. And the paper actually argues that hyperfocusing may support this theory because stimulating tasks can temporarily optimize our dopamine, arousal, and energy allocation in the brain, which as we know looks like ignoring hunger or needing to go to the bathroom while working on an exciting project, but feeling completely unable to maybe answer an email. The researchers also suggest that hyperactivity and fidgeting may sometimes be the brain trying to increase alertness and maintain cognitive energy with which aligns with this model. So again, this is a theory paper, right? So they're not saying that they um discovered a single cause, but it's it's an interesting framework to view ADHD through rather than it just being an attention deficit. But it is interesting because it tries to connect dopamine, sleep, inflammation, fatigue, circadian rhythm, and executive dysfunction into one larger framework, where in other theories it might seem a little disjointed. So at the end of the day they might be proposing that ADHD is more of an endurance situation rather than a capacity or can we do it issue.