New studies suggest that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may primarily be an issue of "sustained engagement," rather than a deficit of attention. This nuance could change the way the condition is understood. Awais Aftab, an American psychiatrist who has been studying the mechanisms of ADHD for several years, states in the New York Times that he is encountering "increasingly more people who come seeking help for a well-known set of difficulties. They have trouble staying focused. They often forget things. They suffer from disorganization, agitation, and impulsivity. They have difficulty managing spreadsheets and service notes, doing the laundry and cooking meals, showing up to appointments, and meeting deadlines. In other words, dealing with the demands of daily life." In France, ADHD affects 6% of schoolchildren and 2.5% of adults, according to the association HyperSupers ADHD France. In recent years, the number of diagnoses has increased and prescriptions for psychostimulants have risen by 154% in five years. This has sparked a heated debate, with some even referring to an "epidemic" of ADHD. A question arises: has the medical profession finally recognized a long-neglected disorder? Or has this diagnosis become too broad? A study published in 2025 in the journal Cell attempted to clarify this. It examined how stimulant medications like Ritalin influence the functioning of brain circuits in children. Results showed that these treatments affect neural connections related to salience, reward, and excitation. No notable changes were detected in the brain networks related to attention, whether the child had ADHD or not. For scientists studying our gray matter, attention is summarized as the selective amplification of relevant information. It can be measured by evaluating a person's ability to ignore irrelevant information or to detect a hidden target among distractions. The characteristics of ADHD can vary from person to person. They include the inability to stay focused on a task, losing the thread of a conversation, or forgetting instructions. But for Awais Aftab, these are failures of "sustained engagement." "If attention consists of directing the mind toward what is relevant at a given moment, engagement seeks to maintain this light beam focused on the same target over time," he explains. "This may relate less to the ability to filter distractions than to whether the task is perceived by the brain as being worth doing first." Thus, the 2025 results show that medications can give the impression of improving attention and concentration. In reality, they could mainly enhance the perceived importance of certain mundane activities, pushing the brain to assign more value to tasks such as math homework or doing the laundry. This is not the first time that science has questioned the idea that ADHD is a deficit of attention. In the 1990s, an experiment offered hyperactive children a choice between a small immediate reward or a larger reward received later. The children preferred the first option when it ended the experiment sooner. In other words, the problem was not necessarily their inability to wait, but rather their aversion to waiting itself. Considering attention as the central issue of ADHD could harm some patients. People facing boredom, emotional instability, or an inability to start a project without the pressure of a deadline might not be diagnosed, even if they suffer from this disorder. Although research is advancing in the understanding of the brain, there are still areas of shadow. Researchers acknowledge that many brain pathways could likely influence concentration difficulties. "Research on the causes and treatments of ADHD is highlighting more issues of impulse control and motivation than a deficient ability to pay attention," notes the psychiatrist. The case of ADHD illustrates how medicine can evolve its understanding of a disorder as new results emerge.