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Using Stimulants to Treat ADHD-Related Emotional Lability

  • Attention-Deficit Disorder (A Rostain, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Emotional lability, or sudden strong shifts in emotion, commonly occurs in youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Although these symptoms are impairing and disruptive, relatively little research has addressed their treatment, likely due to the difficulty of reliable and valid assessment. Promising signals for symptom improvement have come from recent studies using stimulants in adults, children and adolescents. Similarly, neuroimaging studies have begun to identify neurobiological mechanisms underlying stimulants’ impact on emotion regulation capacities. Here, we review these recent clinical and neuroimaging findings, as well as neurocognitive models for emotional lability in ADHD, issues of relevance to prescribers and the important role of psychiatric comorbidity with treatment choices.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to recognize support from the following funding agencies for this work: National Institutes of Drug Abuse (K12 DA000357 to LH), National Institutes of Mental Health (K23 MH091249 and R01 MH101172 to JP), Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD Young Investigator Award to LH which funded work discussed above), Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation (Award to LH which funded work discussed above), Indiana University Values Fund (Award to LH which funded work described above) and the Indiana CTSI (to LH to fund above work) and Edwin S. Webster Foundation (Award to JP which funded work discussed above).

Compliance with Ethics Guidelines

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Conflict of Interest

Erica Kass declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Jonathan Posner is the principal investigator of an investigator-initiated study funded by Shire Pharmaceuticals.

Leslie Hulvershorn has received research support from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Jonathan Posner

  2. Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, USA

    Jonathan Posner & Erica Kass

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Leslie Hulvershorn

  4. 705 Riley Hospital Drive, Room 4300, Indianapolis, IN, 46205, USA

    Leslie Hulvershorn

Authors
  1. Jonathan Posner
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  2. Erica Kass
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  3. Leslie Hulvershorn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leslie Hulvershorn.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Attention-Deficit Disorder

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Posner, J., Kass, E. & Hulvershorn, L. Using Stimulants to Treat ADHD-Related Emotional Lability. Curr Psychiatry Rep 16, 478 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-014-0478-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-014-0478-4

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