Neural Dissolution, Dissociation and Stress in ADHD

According to epidemiological data ADHD is related to significantly increased levels of mental stress and also dissociative symptoms may manifest in ADHD (Endo et al. 2006; Johnson et al. 2007; Sugar and Ford 2012; Martinez et al. 2016). In this context, disturbed developmental processes might play a key role in individual ontogenesis of resilience mechanisms which may create increased sensitivity with respect stressful experiences that may lead to manifestations of pathological dissociative processes that increase attentional and affective disturbances in many children with ADHD. In a wider context these findings suggest new contexts and explanations of various interesting ADHD related topics such as primitive reflexes, balance difficulties, disturbed attentional and motor functions, stress experiences and problem of consciousness and its integrative functions in ADHD. In this context ADHD development is also linked to deficits of neural mechanisms that might underlie specific changes in attentional functions and decreased cognitive control that frequently may be linked to disturbed inhibitory functions (Barkley 1997; Solanto et al. 2001; Sonuga-Barke 2003; Castellanos et al. 2006; Toplak et al. 2005; Antonini et al. 2015; Martinez et al. 2016). This process of disinhibition may cause that more primitive functions may become incongruent with higher levels of attentional and cognitive neural processes, which may lead to neural interference that is also observed as a response to cognitive conflict. This developmentally based neural dysregulation and “dissolution” might explain basic neural mechanisms related to increased sensitivity with respect to stress stimuli from social environment and high occurrence of dissociative symptoms in ADHD children.