If I were to accept the premise of Channel 4’s documentary The Great ADHD Myth?, then I have spent years labouring under a false belief. The diagnosis I received for my so-called ADHD is apparently an arbitrary concept, invented by popular consensus and promoted by publications like �鶹��ý.

National Health Service doctor Max Pemberton presented this idea in a documentary that aired in the UK last night, and in the less than 24 hours that have passed since, many articles and columnists have commented on why it’s so offensive. While I have my own thoughts on that – and trust me, I’m offended – the most urgent issue to address is the show’s suggestion that ADHD may not be a .

One claim is that ADHD is a new condition, dreamed up to force square pegs into the round holes of modern life. This is simply not true. An early documented medical description of what we now call ADHD when from the Royal College of Physicians described people who had problems paying attention for long enough to complete tasks, saying they had “the fidgets”.

Since then, the condition has been medically described and renamed (who can forget “abnormal defect of moral control in children” in the early 1900s?) many times. While Pemberton is right to note that rates of diagnosis have soared in recent years, diagnoses in the UK are still below estimates of population prevalence from around the world. Studies that screen large groups of people for symptoms consistently put rates of ADHD in the general population .

But the results of an found that just 1 per cent of the population is diagnosed overall in England. Even among boys and young men, the group most likely to be diagnosed, the recorded rates are 2.9 per cent and 3.6 per cent, respectively. If anything, ADHD is underdiagnosed on these shores.

Autism and ADHD are on the rise due to widening diagnostic criteria

A study of 140,000 people suggests that a broadening of the diagnostic criteria for autism and ADHD explains the sharp rise in diagnoses, but that doesn’t mean too many people are being told they are autistic or have ADHD

Then there is the claim that ADHD is a social construct, not a neurodevelopmental condition. This is something Pemberton ponders after talking to neuroscientist at King’s College London. Rubia says that while there is evidence of differences between the brains of people with ADHD and neurotypical people at the group level, it isn’t possible to diagnose ADHD from a brain scan.

She is right, of course. You can’t diagnose ADHD from brain scans. The same can be said for most, if not all, psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. Most of these, like ADHD, are diagnosed by assessing symptoms and the effect they have on a person’s everyday ability to function. “My interview was hours long and they cherry-picked the bits that suited their push for presenting ADHD as a myth,” Rubia told �鶹��ý. “Biased programmes like this one that push their view of ADHD as a mythical entity are irresponsible and will have detrimental effects.”

Pemberton proceeds to seek out a diagnosis for ADHD via an online assessment, despite thinking he probably doesn’t have it. In reality, ADHD is diagnosed via a lengthy process that includes multiple questionnaires and an interview. To get a diagnosis, ADHD traits have to be causing significant problems in two or more settings, such as at work or with managing bills. If it doesn’t affect your life, mental health or relationships, you don’t qualify for the second D of ADHD: disorder. 

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The person carrying out his diagnosis isn’t identified. All we hear is that Pemberton apparently has ADHD and is handed a prescription for drugs that are described as “basically cocaine”.

At this point, the scaremongering about drugging our brains, particularly those of children, really begins. Yes, there is an argument that we need more for ADHD. We don’t have this yet, partly because, despite claims of the addictiveness of these medications, in the long term.

What we do have is evidence that treatments, whether drug-based or not, improve , and that , substance abuse, criminality and suicide.

Thought-provoking photographs capture what it feels like to have ADHD

These unusual images were created by visual artist Daniel Regan by submerging Polaroid photographs in his ADHD medication, to represent his experiences with the condition through art

All of which will hopefully be of some comfort to the parents of Mason, a young boy in the documentary who is taken off his medication in favour of yoga, nature walks and zero screen time. It seems to help a bit, but his schoolwork and behaviour decline, so his parents reluctantly put him back on the meds.

The documentary makes that seem like a failure. But the real failure is the way the programme-makers chose shock tactics over scientifically accurate reporting, letting Mason, and the rest of us, down.

Channel 4 declined to comment and Pemberton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123 (); US Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 (). Visit for services in other countries.

Tiny versions of the cerebral cortex, a brain region involved in thinking and memory, have been grown for five years, making them the longest-lived brain organoids that have been studied in detail. Their genetic activity also mimicked that typically seen in the brain of a 4-year-old child, suggesting that the organoids could sense time passing.

“This demonstrates for the first time that not only can human brain organoids be grown for about five years, but they also show an ageing profile that corresponds with that of the developing brain of a similar age,” says at the University of Cambridge, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Brain organoids are clumps of brain cells grown in a lab dish. They are created by bathing stem cells in chemicals that coax them to form clumps resembling fetal brains. Studying them has already provided insights on autism and conditions like dementia. But the expense and manual labour involved means they are usually only grown for a few months, says Lakatos.

In 2021, researchers reported growing , with these structures mimicking the cerebral cortex from its development during pregnancy to nearly one year after birth.

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Now, at Harvard University and her colleagues have analysed the genetic activity of five-year-old cortical organoids grown from human stem cells. The team has grown the same kind of organoids for seven years, but there are too few of these older organoids to reliably analyse them, she says.

The researchers analysed the genetic activity and epigenetic marks – chemical tags added to DNA that regulate gene activity and shift with age – in cells within the five-year-old organoids. When comparing these measurements against those recorded from the brains of fetuses in previous research, they found that, at three to six months, the organoids resembled the fetal brain at around three to six months post-conception.

We should be open about organoid research to avoid a backlash

Research that involves creating “mini-organs” from human cells, including those from fetuses, may leave people uncomfortable – so the best approach is to explain the reasoning behind the work and its potential benefits

With time, the organoids resembled the later stages of brain development, with the activity of five-year-old organoids mimicking that seen in the cerebral cortex of a typical 4-year-old child. “They were recording the passage of time in their epigenetic signatures [and gene activity],” says Arlotta.

Such long-lived organoids could offer a way to study how autism and conditions such as epilepsy emerge during the later stages of brain development, says Lakatos. Arlotta says she and her colleagues are using their organoids for this purpose, as well as to screen for drugs that may be able to alter the progression of conditions like epilepsy.

Other groups of researchers won’t be readily able to do this, due to the challenges of growing organoids, says Lakatos. Finding ways to speed up organoid ageing will be important for research, he says.