Narrowing Down Neuro: Junior Hannah Todd is starting a neurology internship at KU after her ADHD diagnosis sparked an interest in the subject

“Begin now.”

As her classmates flipped to the first page of their eighth grade history test and started writing, junior Hannah Todd stared blankly at the first question. She read it five times before processing what she needed to do.

Whether it was taking longer on assessments in elementary school or switching between a new hobby each week, Hannah knew she was different from her classmates. She had trouble concentrating and excessively fidgeted while working. 

Todd was diagnosed with ADHD inattentive in September 2021. This was when she picked up a new interest — neurology. She wanted to better understand her brain and the effect ADHD would have on her. She wanted to know why her mind works the way it does and determine what makes it different. 

This month, Hannah continues her goal of helping others struggling with ADHD as she begins her neurology internship at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

By talking to students at KU or using government websites, she was able to figure out why sometimes reading through her assignments felt like reading another language — nothing connected.

“If I can get the information I’m learning out to others, it’ll help them understand themselves better and understand others who are like them who have ADHD or other mental illnesses,” Todd said.

In kindergarten, Hannah was given a doctor’s kit with a real stethoscope from her mom, Sarah Todd. But Hannah didn’t want just a plastic medical instrument, she wanted to hear a real heartbeat. Sarah recognized Hannah’s drive to understand people and objects past the surface level.

“She’s a very good listener, very in tune to others and very perceptive,” Sarah said. “But she’s also very persistent and driven. She’ll stick with something until she figures it out.”

A family friend of the Todd’s, David Guggenmos, introduced Hannah to the internship. She originally talked to David’s wife about her interest in the brain and immediately built a connection. From there, Hannah got in contact with David, toured a building he works in and was informed of the KEE program — the KU Medical Center Educational Experience. The KEE program is a chance for high school and college students to apply to shadow experiments and workers at KUMC.

“She was going to spend maybe an hour shadowing him,” Sarah said. “She spent over three hours [at KUMC] and loved it and came home on cloud nine. So ecstatic, so eager and excited to learn more.”

During the internship, she’ll be studying how the brain recovers from trauma by studying rats. The tests will focus on the neurons in a rat’s brain and the effect of the trauma on the rat’s ability to complete a task. She’ll observe the behavior during a task where the animals reach and retrieve food.

Through this opportunity, Hannah will work with students ranging from high school to college to experience programs and neurology professionals to get a real-world look into the field of neurology. 

“Everybody knows what a physician is, but not very many people get exposure to what you’re doing,” Guggenmos said. “You can read about things in a science textbook, but that’s very different from the actual practice of doing research.”

Hannah’s goal for the program is to figure out if neurology will be a future career of hers — like becoming a bioengineer and inventing tools to regulate the dopamine system. She can take this research and reflect it on to others so they won’t feel like there’s something wrong with themselves. Their brain just works differently.

“There’s so many different internships, there’s so many different opportunities, there’s so many different careers,” Todd said. “The more you can narrow that down the better. [The hard part] is getting over that fear. Fear is what stops everyone from doing anything.”