Jensen P S, Mrazek D, Knapp P K, Steinberg L, Pfeffer C, Schowalter J, Shapiro T
Child and Adolescent Disorders Research Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, MD 20857, USA.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1997 Dec;36(12):1672-9; discussion 1679-81. doi: 10.1097/00004583-199712000-00015.
Current knowledge about early plasticity and children's responsiveness to environmental modifications as well as the atheoretical nature of current nosological systems necessitate alternative models to explain the phenomena of childhood behavioral and emotional disturbances. Evolutionary biology provides one such framework. It organizes data from the behavioral and cognitive sciences and parallels similar efforts in other areas of medicine and biology. Through an evolutionary biological lens, some mental disorders are better viewed as an adaptive response to early pathogenic environments and/or reflect the optimization of brain function to some environments at the cost of poorer response to the demands of other environments. As an example, the authors examine attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in relation to evolutionary theories of psychology and biology and clarify the potentially adaptive nature of characteristics of inattention, impulsivity, and motoric hyperactivity, depending on the nature of child's environments. Reframing ADHD characteristics according to evolutionary theory has important treatment implications for clinicians and offers researchers opportunities for novel scientific discoveries.
目前关于早期可塑性以及儿童对环境变化的反应能力的知识，再加上当前疾病分类系统的无理论性本质，使得需要有替代模型来解释儿童行为和情绪障碍现象。进化生物学提供了这样一个框架。它整合了行为科学和认知科学的数据，并与医学和生物学其他领域的类似研究相呼应。通过进化生物学的视角，一些精神障碍更宜被视为对早期致病环境的适应性反应，和/或反映了大脑功能在某些环境下的优化，代价是对其他环境需求的反应较差。例如，作者结合心理学和生物学的进化理论来研究注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD），并根据儿童所处环境的性质，阐明注意力不集中、冲动和多动等特征潜在的适应性本质。根据进化理论重新界定ADHD的特征，对临床医生具有重要的治疗意义，也为研究人员提供了进行新科学发现的机会。
