Question: Dr Barkley, 
  Thank you for taking our questions. 
  
  Have you and your colleagues noticed any differences in the way people with “inattentive” ADHD respond to medications vs the more hyperactive subtype?  
  
  What are the most promising lines of research in the ADHD field these days?
Answer: There is really just one kind of  ADHD, which is why we don't use subtypes any longer.  The DSM5 uses the term presentations.  That is because it is only meant to convey that on any given day, one seton symptoms might have been more prominent than the other - nothing else.  And people can change presentations with development and even the context.  So there really isn't anything different about those presentations; certainly nothing qualitative.  that said, clinicians often use the inattentive presentation diagnosis (or even the outdated term ADD) for a group of people who struggle with attention but have no whiff of impulsivity, hyperactivity, or the other EFs I noted above.  We now believe that most of those people have a second attention disorder, currently called sluggish cognitive tempo or SCT.  But that term is going to get change this year by a task force I am on of leading SCT researchers as the term is demeaning.  You can read more about SCT on my website under Fact Sheets and also using Google Scholar to find journal articles.  Briefly, its characterized more by daydreaming, staring, spaciness, mental confusion, underactivity, even slowness to react or respond.  We are studying if it is a pathological form of mind wandering or daydreaming or mind blanking or all three.  Half of people with SCT also have ADHD and vice versa, but the other half do not.  SCT is related to passivity, social withdrawal or even shyness, risk for depression, and can be seen in autism spectrum disorder.  A root, we think it involves a decoupling or disengagement of the mind and attention from the ongoing external environment and an over coupling of attention to mental content (daydreaming, mind wandering) or at times no content mind blanking).  We have a lot more work to do to understand it but its not  ADHD and doesn't seem to respond so well to ADHD medications, but that has barely been studied.
content: Q: Dr Barkley, 
  Thank you for taking our questions. 
  
  Have you and your colleagues noticed any differences in the way people with “inattentive” ADHD respond to medications vs the more hyperactive subtype?  
  
  What are the most promising lines of research in the ADHD field these days?
   Ans: There is really just one kind of  ADHD, which is why we don't use subtypes any longer.  The DSM5 uses the term presentations.  That is because it is only meant to convey that on any given day, one seton symptoms might have been more prominent than the other - nothing else.  And people can change presentations with development and even the context.  So there really isn't anything different about those presentations; certainly nothing qualitative.  that said, clinicians often use the inattentive presentation diagnosis (or even the outdated term ADD) for a group of people who struggle with attention but have no whiff of impulsivity, hyperactivity, or the other EFs I noted above.  We now believe that most of those people have a second attention disorder, currently called sluggish cognitive tempo or SCT.  But that term is going to get change this year by a task force I am on of leading SCT researchers as the term is demeaning.  You can read more about SCT on my website under Fact Sheets and also using Google Scholar to find journal articles.  Briefly, its characterized more by daydreaming, staring, spaciness, mental confusion, underactivity, even slowness to react or respond.  We are studying if it is a pathological form of mind wandering or daydreaming or mind blanking or all three.  Half of people with SCT also have ADHD and vice versa, but the other half do not.  SCT is related to passivity, social withdrawal or even shyness, risk for depression, and can be seen in autism spectrum disorder.  A root, we think it involves a decoupling or disengagement of the mind and attention from the ongoing external environment and an over coupling of attention to mental content (daydreaming, mind wandering) or at times no content mind blanking).  We have a lot more work to do to understand it but its not  ADHD and doesn't seem to respond so well to ADHD medications, but that has barely been studied.