What can you do?

Take some time this week to reflect on how your service can further support those who are neurodiverse.

It is important that we take a person-centred approach, as every neurodivergent person has a unique pattern of strengths and challenges.

Please see a number of resources in the Neurodiversity section in our Knowledge Hub here.

It includes excellent resources to help your services to become more inclusive to those who are neurodiverse and experiencing homelessness, such as a learning disabilities and homelessness toolkit, resources from our dementia training project and an autism and homelessness toolkit.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects millions worldwide, yet its presence within the criminal justice system is often misunderstood or overlooked. 

In this podcast we navigate the complex landscape where ADHD and the criminal justice system intercept; shedding light on the unique challenges and misconceptions faced by people with ADHD in prisons and the opportunities for improved care and support. 


From late diagnosis to repeated prison sentences, the impact of ADHD can shape outcomes in profound and often unrecognised ways. 


Host Emma Haslett is joined by Dr Tony Lloyd, the CEO of the ADHD Foundation; Sir Robert Buckland, the former Secretary of State for Justice and MP; Daley Jones, trustee at ADHD Liberty; and Sarah Templeton, an ADHD author and therapist, to explore the stories of those living at this intersection.

Buena Vista Correctional Complex

If He Outgrew it --
What is he doing In My Prison

T. Dwaine  McCallon,  M.D.                
Medical Director, Buena Vista Correctional Facility,
Asst. Chief Medical  Officer, Colorado Dept. of Corrections  (1998)

If your ADHD is so disabling that you have found yourself living in  a remote walled  prison of over 1,000 men, then it is unlikely that you  will  progress  toward  rehabilitation without the aid of medication. 

Stimulant  medicine  can greatly enhance  the ability to learn how to develop caution and  judgment, and to learn a job  skill.

. . . Over half of these recall being told they would not need treatment beyond the teens as they would outgrow their ADD.

None whom we have worked with were treated into their twenties.18% had discovered that crystal meth on the street would give them focus and a sense of calmness.

20% found solace from the feeling of “being a meathead”, “still being the retard kid” by seeking oblivion with marijuana and heroin."

Recent studies have revealed that neuropsychiatric disorders have a pro-inflammatory component in which ROS [Reactive Oxygen Species] is capable of initiating damage and cognitive malfunction.

Our current understanding of cognition suggests that it is the product of a neuronal network that consumes a substantial amount of energy.

Thus, alterations or perturbations of mitochondrial function may alter not only brain energy supply and metabolite generation, but also thought processes and behavior.

Mitochondrial abnormalities and oxidative stress have been implicated in several well-known psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD).

As cognition is highly energy-dependent, we propose that the neuronal pathways underlying maladaptive cognitive processing and psychiatric symptoms are most likely dependent on mitochondrial function, and thus involve brain energy translocation and the accumulation of the byproducts of oxidative stress

The cell danger response is primarily regulated by adenosine triphosphate (ATP) the body’s chemical energy currency.

While these ATP-signaling pathways do not develop normally in autism, they may be partially restorable with existing pharmaceutical drugs.

In 2017, Naviaux and his team completed early clinical testing for suramin, the only drug approved in humans that can target ATP signaling and which is normally used to treat African sleeping sickness.

The accumulation of dysfunctional mitochondria leads to the intense release of free radicals that trigger oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, resulting in an interlinked vicious cascade.

Highlights

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• Microglia originate in the embryonic yolk sac and migrate to the brain during prenatal development.
  

   

•     Microglia survey the brain through expansion and retraction of radial processes, and are essential for normal brain development and function.

   

•     In addition to maintaining homeostasis and responding to CNS injury, microglia regulate synaptogenesis, neuronal maturation and activity.

  

•     Adult microglial function can be programmed by developmental insults.

  

•     Microglial dysregulation is associated with brain aging, neurodegeneration and a range of brain pathologies.