Passion never rests
Upon receiving her ADHD diagnosis at age 17, Marissa Pighin remembers her first interaction with her doctor as, “‘I’ll write you a ‘script and send you out the door.'”
Pighin, now 22 and a UW psychology honors student, thought that there must be a better way to treat ADHD. “With medications, it’s artificial鈥攐nce they’re out of your system, the symptoms come back,” she said. “I want more than a Band-Aid, I want a long-term solution.鈥�
In a new research project at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, Pighin is developing an innovative strategy that could help train the brain to maintain attention while reading鈥攁 problem she has experienced related to her ADHD.