Awareness of and interest in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have skyrocketed in recent years. There are four times as many Google searches for the term as there were just three years ago. In September 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care issued a national patient safety alert, declaring a national shortage of ADHD medication, citing some manufacturing issues – and increased global demand. Why all this extra attention?

Theories abound. Is better awareness of neurodiversity simply leading to better diagnosis and happier, healthier people? Is the media appetite simply farming stories about ‘over-medicalisation’ of normal human traits? Or could there be something about modern life – 24-hour news, working from home, being glued to our phones, and scrolling TikTok – actually causing more people suffering or impairment? Is society itself becoming ‘more ADHD’? 

Join Professor Roi Cohen Kadosh, recipient of the British Psychological Society’s Spearman medal, to explore the nature of attention itself, the biological and neurological bases of ‘attention deficit’, and some of the new techniques being pioneered today that may change the lives of people with ADHD forever.

The Blackham Lecture explores an aspect of education or human development, either philosophical, practical, or social, that relates to humanism. The Blackham medallist has made a significant contribution in one of these fields. The lecture and medal are named after the educationist and activist Harold Blackham, first executive director of Humanists UK and first general secretary of Humanists International.

About Professor Roi Cohen Kadosh

Roi Cohen Kadosh is a neuropsychologist by training, and is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and Head of School of Psychology at the University of Surrey. His research focuses on the psychological and biological factors that shape learning and thinking with special focus on maths and sustained attention. He is a pioneer in using painless and safe brain stimulation techniques to manipulate neuronal activity and to change how the brain works with short or long-term effects to improve learning and thinking processes.