We Try Harder Details of brain scans require interpretation from neurologists, but even the novice can see that adults who have been diagnosed with ADHD (second line of images) reacted differently in this experiment when they were required to push a button only if certain letters appeared on a screen. Sustained attention to this task required more brain power (the lit areas) for those with ADHD. Notice also that certain parts of the brain were activated by the healthy adults and not by the ADHD ones. Apparently adults who had problems paying attention when they were children have learned to focus when they need to, but they do it in their own way and with more effort.