This article interested me. I've felt concern over dopaminergic medications in children ever since knowing a childhood friend who was given Ritalin fall into drug dependency.

Some principles seem well established:

Firstly, Dopaminergic agents can promote affective disorders, by hijacking the 'seeking' system (1).

Secondly, there is a scarcity of safety data for methylphenidate looking at social and psychiatric consequences beyond 2 years (2).

Thirdly, Methylphenidate shares pharmacodynamic porperties with cocaine, but is ameliorated by its longer duration of action. Like cocaine, methyphenidate is also a drug of abuse (3).

Fourthly, exposure to one drug of abuse will prime a person for abuse of other drugs, creating a vulnerability which may persist for years and may lead to relapse.

Lastly, many people first experiment with hedonic drugs in their teens.

We then induce a conclusion: that giving children dopaminergic drugs risks promoting addictive, high seeking behaviour in later life?

Who will fund that one?

1. Jaak Panksepp. Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations Of Human And Animal Emotions. Oxford University Press. 2004
2. FDA, Psychiatric Adverse Events Associated with Drug Treatment of ADHD: Review of Postmarketing Safety Data. 3rd March 2006. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/06/briefing/2006-4210b_11_01_Adverse...
3. Misuse and Diversion of Stimulants Prescribed for ADHD: A Systematic Review. Wilens et al. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry - January 2008 (Vol. 47, Issue 1, Pages 21-31,)

Competing interests: None declared