What Caused Your ADHD? What the Research Actually Says — and What to Do With That
What Caused Your ADHD? What the Research Actually Says — and What to Do With That / September 16, 2026 / Harold Robert Meyer · https://www.addrc.org/
This piece addresses the self-blame and parent-blame that often follows an ADHD diagnosis by summarizing what the research identifies as causal — heritability of roughly 74 percent from twin and family studies, 27 genome-wide risk loci from a 2023 GWAS, a narrow set of modestly contributing prenatal and perinatal factors, and measurable subcortical brain-volume differences — then pivots deliberately to what the diagnosis calls for now: confirming the diagnosis, starting evidence-based treatment, and building daily structure, regardless of which mix of factors produced the condition.