Free Will and the ADD Brain: Decoding How Our Minds Make Choices

"The mind of a person with ADD is often described as being like a room full of people shouting for attention. It’s a chaotic, fragmented mind, not always able to follow the trail of one thought long enough to make a coherent decision."

- Gabor Maté, Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming during class, or struggling to focus on your homework? Maybe you intended to study for a test, but a few minutes into it, you found yourself scrolling through Facebook reels or rearranging your desk. You’ve probably had a moment when you thought, Why did I just do that? and wondered whether you had control over your actions at all.

This feeling of not being able to control your impulses, thoughts, or behaviours is something many people with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) experience regularly. Gabor Maté, a renowned physician and author, touches on these challenges in his book Scattered Minds, where he explores how ADD isn’t just about being distracted, but about how our brains process and make decisions. Maté's work connects deeply with the concept of free will, questioning how much control we really have over our choices and behaviours.

The key to understanding free will, especially in the context of ADD, lies in understanding how our brains work, particularly how the brain’s networks influence decision-making. This involves looking into complex processes such as the default mode network, the triple network of the brain, epigenetics, and the influence of mirror neurons. So, buckle up as we explore how our brains shape our actions and choices — and whether or not we’re actually in control of them.

The ADD Brain: A Struggle Between Focus and Impulse

"Attention, or the lack of it, is the key factor in determining the way a person with ADD perceives the world. The world becomes a chaotic blur, and focus slips through their fingers like sand."

- Gabor Maté, Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

Let’s start with a big question: What is ADD, and how does it affect decision-making?

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is often misunderstood. It’s more than just a problem of being distracted. People with ADD often have difficulty focusing on one task for an extended period, staying organized, and controlling impulsive behaviors. Their minds can seem scattered, jumping from one thought to another. Gabor Maté, in Scattered Minds, explains that ADD is not merely a neurodevelopmental disorder but the result of how a person's brain adapts to early childhood experiences, stress, and environmental factors.

One of the most significant challenges faced by those with ADD is their inability to regulate attention. The brain’s ability to focus on important tasks and ignore distractions is essential for decision-making. Maté writes that "a lack of attention regulation creates a fragmented sense of self," and this disruption in focus leads to decisions that seem impulsive or out of alignment with a person’s best interests.

In the context of free will, this raises the question: If we struggle to focus and regulate our behaviour, can we truly control our decisions? The answer isn’t simple, but it begins with understanding how the brain is wired, particularly the systems involved in attention and decision-making.

The Triple Network of the Brain: Who’s In Control?

"The brain is a dynamic and complex network of networks. It is a world in itself, and our actions and decisions are guided by its hidden structures, many of which we don't even know exist."

- Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

To better understand how decisions are made, we need to look at the brain's "triple network." Think of this as a team of brain regions working together to guide you through everyday life and help you make choices. These three networks — the Central Executive Network (CEN), the Salience Network (SN), and the Default Mode Network (DMN) — all play crucial roles in determining how we focus, how we react to emotions, and even how we see ourselves.

1. The Central Executive Network (CEN)

"The brain’s executive functions are the mental tools that allow us to focus, plan, make decisions, and inhibit impulses. These functions are what make us capable of controlling our impulses and achieving long-term goals."

- Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself

The CEN is like the brain's "manager," and its job is to help you focus on tasks and solve problems. It’s responsible for things like logic, reasoning, and planning. When you’re trying to study for a test or complete a project, the CEN is the network that’s supposed to keep you on track. In people with ADD, this network often struggles to stay engaged. You might start studying, but before long, your attention drifts to something else entirely.

In his book, Maté explains that "children with ADD are often overstimulated by their environment, which hijacks the brain's ability to focus and stay on track." This overstimulation can interfere with the CEN’s job, making it harder to stick to tasks and make rational decisions.

2. The Salience Network (SN)

"The Salience Network acts as a filter, directing your attention toward what your brain deems most important in the moment, ensuring that you stay focused on the survival-related aspects of your environment."

- Norman Doidge, The Brain's Way of Healing

The Salience Network acts as a radar system, helping us recognize what’s important. It identifies stimuli in the environment that demand our attention, like a phone buzzing or a loud noise in the classroom. The SN is essential for survival because it tells us what to focus on in the present moment. In the ADD brain, however, this network can become hyperactive or misdirected. A small distraction — a noise, a thought, or even a fleeting emotion — might pull attention away from what’s important.

"When the brain's salience network is hyperactive," Maté writes, "it becomes more likely that irrelevant stimuli will capture attention, leading to impulsive behavior or a difficulty in distinguishing what is truly important." This explains why someone with ADD might suddenly get caught up in a completely unrelated thought or action, even when they’re in the middle of something important.

3. The Default Mode Network (DMN)

"The self is not a single place in the brain; it is an emergent property of many regions working in concert. It is a result of ongoing processes, constantly shifting and changing with experience."

- Antonio Damasio, The Self Comes to Mind

Now, here’s where it gets really interesting: the Default Mode Network (DMN). The DMN is active when we’re not focusing on anything specific. It’s like the brain’s "resting" state, the background hum that continues even when we’re not consciously doing anything. This is the network that activates when we’re daydreaming, zoning out, or just letting our mind wander.

But here’s the twist: the DMN is also the network responsible for creating our sense of self. When you’re daydreaming about the future or reflecting on your past, the DMN is hard at work shaping your identity. It asks big questions like: Who am I? What do I want? What’s my purpose in life? In other words, the DMN helps build the story of you.

This network has a significant influence on decision-making because it frames everything within the context of your identity. "We are not only thinking about the present moment but also projecting ourselves into the future," says neuroscientist Marcus Raichle, a leading researcher in brain networks. "The Default Mode Network enables us to create a personal narrative." When you're deciding what to do next — whether to study, play, or scroll through social media — the DMN is quietly guiding those decisions based on how you see yourself.

For someone with ADD, this can be tricky. The DMN can become overly active and begin to flood the person with fragmented, distracting thoughts. This explains why people with ADD might make decisions that seem out of alignment with their long-term goals or values. Their DMN might create a sort of time-blindness,  leading them to daydream about something unrelated, causing them to procrastinate instead of studying for an important test or to miss a train because they failed to leave the house with enough time on their hands.

Epigenetics: How Our Past Shapes Our Present Decisions

"Our genetic blueprint is not a script but a series of options, influenced by the environment. The choices we make can change how our genes are expressed, and in turn, how we think, feel, and act."

- David S. Moore, The Developing Genome

Now, let’s bring in epigenetics, which is the study of how our environment and experiences can affect how our genes express themselves. Our genes aren’t fixed — they can be turned on or off based on the experiences we have throughout our lives. Early childhood experiences, like stress, trauma, or a lack of nurturing, can influence how our brains develop and how our genes function later in life.

For those with ADD, early life experiences can shape the way their brains respond to stress, attention, and impulse control. Maté suggests that "addiction and other behavioural problems can be seen as adaptive responses to a childhood environment that lacked emotional safety and support." The brain learns to adapt to its environment, but in ways that may not be helpful for decision-making in the long run.

This also ties back to the role of the Default Mode Network. If a child grows up in a stressful environment, their DMN might start crafting a narrative of fear, insecurity, or unworthiness, which can influence their behaviour and decisions as they grow older. These early experiences can create a predisposition toward impulsive or avoidant behaviour, and that can make it harder to make mindful, long-term decisions - something Maté calls "forgetting to remember the future".

Mirror Neurons: Why We Copy What We See

"Mirror neurons are the invisible thread that links us to one another. When we see someone act, our brain activates the same neural circuits as if we were doing it ourselves, which helps us understand their actions, and more importantly, ours."

- Marco Iacoboni, Mirroring People

One of the fascinating aspects of human behaviour is how much we’re influenced by others. Mirror neurons are special cells in the brain that help us "mirror" the actions, emotions, and behaviours of those around us. If you see someone yawn, chances are you’ll yawn too. If you see someone laughing, you might feel like laughing as well. These neurons help us connect with others and learn through observation.

In the case of ADD, mirror neurons can play a significant role in decision-making. If a person with ADD is surrounded by people who are impulsive, distracted, or procrastinating, they might unconsciously mimic these behaviours. This can reinforce the patterns of distractibility and impulsivity that people with ADD often struggle with. "Mirror neurons provide the brain with an automatic way of copying behaviour," says neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni. "This helps us learn and relate to others, but it can also reinforce behaviors that aren’t always in our best interest."

Is Free Will, then, just our ability to stop ourselves from copying others in some instances, while choosing to copy behaviours we observe, in others? In a late night chat, psychiatrist Amvrine Ganguly proposed this radically straightforward way of looking at things, which my brain, out of a long nurtured notion of the human brain being a magical, special instrument, struggled to accept. Could it just be this simple?

So, Do We Have Free Will?

"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. The greatest punishment is not being able to make choices that align with what you truly want."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"We are often unaware of the processes that shape our decisions. Our intuitive thinking system, fast and automatic, often guides us, while our slower, more deliberate system remains in the background, rarely in charge."

- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Now that we’ve explored the brain’s networks, epigenetics, and mirror neurons, we keep circling back to the same  question: Do we truly have free will?

The short answer is - it's complicated. Free will might not be as free as we imagine, but we’re not entirely powerless either. Our brains, especially in the case of ADD, are shaped by a complex web of factors: childhood experiences, genetic predispositions, environmental influences, and the way our brain’s networks interact with each other. These factors make some decisions feel automatic, out of our control.

However, understanding how these systems work gives us the power to make more conscious choices. By recognizing the role of the Triple Network, epigenetics, and mirror neurons, we can begin to understand the forces influencing our decisions. And by being mindful of our environment, our triggers, and the people around us, we can start to exert more control over the manner in which we make those decisions.

In conclusion, free will isn’t just about making decisions in a vacuum — it’s about understanding the forces that shape us and learning how to navigate them. If you have ADD, this might mean developing strategies to manage distractions, seeking out supportive environments, or working to strengthen the parts of your brain that help with focus and self-regulation. But ultimately, recognizing how your brain works is the first step in making more intentional, empowered choices. And that, in itself, might be the most important act of free will.