TED Health Interview: What happens in your brain when you pay attention? with Dr. Sasha Hamdani
Nov 18, 2025
Dr. Sasha Hamdani, a psychiatrist and ADHD specialist, dives into what it truly means to live with ADHD, highlighting its impact on emotion and cognition. She discusses how it often presents differently in women and recognizes the role of societal stigma in diagnosis rates. Dr. Hamdani also emphasizes the importance of viewing ADHD strengths, like creativity and hyperfocus, as assets. With her lived experiences, she advocates for personalized care, community support, and practical strategies, including her Focus Genie app, to help individuals harness their attention.
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Covert Attention Uses Frontal Filtering
- Covert attention lets your brain focus without moving your eyes and relies on frontal filtering to amplify attended signals.
- Mehdi Ordikhani‑Seidlar explains that frontal activation acts as a filter that inhibits distractors and boosts relevant input.
ADHD As A Filtering Problem
- ADHD reflects impaired filtering and inhibition of distractors, not just being easily distracted.
- Ordikhani‑Seidlar frames ADHD as a failure to inhibit irrelevant inputs, which undermines sustained focus.
Train Inhibition With Brain‑Computer Games
- Train the brain via cognitive brain‑machine interfaces to strengthen inhibitory control over distractors.
- Ordikhani‑Seidlar proposes using neurofeedback games to teach people with ADHD to suppress irrelevant signals.
