My contribution to the worlds understanding of ADHD and the drugs used to treat it

[BuzzKillington]

Nobody will really read this - not on this forum anyways. But studies that I, personally, helped conduct has changed our understand of the drug Amphetamine (prescribed as Adderall and Dexedrine in the US), and why it’s able to treat ADHD so effectively.

Anyways, the below will bore you to death if you don’t know or care how drugs work. But I feel awesome having contributed to this. I’m like Freeman… before he became a soldier/freedom fighter (i.e a scientist)

Amphetamine changes gene expression and therefore actually permanently changes brain function when taken in the long-term. (Keep in mind that small doses of Amphetamine (such as prescribed doses) improve brain function permanently. While Amphetamine abuse, through the exact same mechanism, actually causes brain damage).

Anyways, here’s the abstract from the study that was able to prove the above. I made a diagram for those that care

This diagram depicts the signaling events in the brain’s reward center that are induced by long-term exposure to psychostimulants that increase the concentration of synaptic dopamine, like amphetamine, methylphenidate, and phenethylamine. Following presynaptic dopamine and glutamate co-release by a drug, postsynaptic receptors for these neurotransmitters trigger internal signaling events through a cAMP (Cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate)[/SIZE] pathway and calcium-dependent pathway that ultimately result in increased CREB (cAMP response element-binding protein)[/SIZE] phosphorylation. Phosphorylated CREB increases levels of ΔFosB (FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog B)[/SIZE], which in turn represses the c-fos (a protein made of amino acids that binds to, and causes transactivation of the C-terminus)[/SIZE] gene with the help of corepressors. A highly stable (phosphorylated) form of ΔFosB, one that persists in neurons for one or two months, slowly accumulates following repeated exposure to stimulants through this process. ΔFosB functions as “one of the master control proteins” that produces change in the mesocorticalimbic dopamine pathways. This modulates human ‘stimulant - response’ behavior in social conflicts, and reward situations. Patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder therefore are likely to be deficient in this Phosphate transcript protein that would normally regulate social situations, and reward decisions. This may be the cause of the increased impassivity, and the inability to maintain focus when presented with an ‘interrupt’ stimulus in these patients. Long-term amphetamine abuse, however, would cause a massive increase ΔFosB, resulting in the related addiction-related structural changes in the brain, and upon sufficient accumulation, with the help of its downstream targets (e.g., nuclear factor kappa B), it induces an addictive state.

[sersoft]

I think the font on that image got messed up. Otherwise, very informative, thanks.

[Dreadmoth]

@sersoft

I think the font on that image got messed up. Otherwise, very informative, thanks.

I think the quote box might be squishing / stretching it or something - if you view the image directly the text looks fine.

EDIT: Ah, it’s not getting stretched - there are some transparent pixels around the text which make it hard to read because you can see the dark grey forum background through the picture.

[Pyroclase]

@BuzzKillington

Amphetamine changes gene expression and therefore actually permanently changes brain function when taken in the long-term. (Keep in mind that small doses of Amphetamine (such as prescribed doses) improve brain function permanently. While Amphetamine abuse, through the exact same mechanism, actually causes brain damage).

Wait, you’re saying that taking ADHD pills is actually making me smarter?

[Chickenprotector]

^ From the looks of it, yes.

That’s informative. Thanks for sharing, I suspected there were long term effects of some drugs, just never got into it. I’m more into the tech aspects of life, not biology.

[BuzzKillington]

@Pyro

Wait, you’re saying that taking ADHD pills is actually making me smarter?

It all depends on the dose If you take it therapeutically (60 milligrams or less per day), probably. I can’t say yes for sure because everyone is different and therefore it would be inappropriate to say that everyone would get this kind of effect. But, most probably? Yes. I guess, I wouldn’t say it’s making you smarter, but rather ‘turning up the volume’ of your ‘logical’ brain. Think of it as… um…

Think of it as speaker static. You can hear it all too well when their’s no other sound to drown it out it - even if your volume is low - moderate, you can still hear grounding static on a speaker. In most cases, when you turn up the volume on the speaker - the sound of the static goes up as well.

So imagine it like this. Your frontal lobe (logical part of the brain) is a beautiful harmony. But it’s saturated with auditory static. This ‘static’ is the limbic area of the brain (emotional brain), ‘interfering’ with your logic.

What Amphetamine does is therefore, turning up the volume ONLY on the music and keeping the annoying static at the same volume. So, in essence; it’s not making you smarter perse… but rather ‘upgrading’ your logical brain from an analog signal to a digital one - while the emotional brain remains analog.

[RK1]

Most of all that stuff went way over my head because I never really gave a shit about biology. But I have ADHD myself and though I’m not taking any drugs or medication this does have some sort of relevance to me. Thanks for your hard work!

[Pyroclase]

@BuzzKillington

It all depends on the dose If you take it therapeutically (60 milligrams or less per day), probably. I can’t say yes for sure because everyone is different and therefore it would be inappropriate to say that everyone would get this kind of effect. But, most probably? Yes. I guess, I wouldn’t say it’s making you smarter, but rather ‘turning up the volume’ of your ‘logical’ brain. Think of it as… um…

Think of it as speaker static. You can hear it all too well when their’s no other sound to drown it out it - even if your volume is low - moderate, you can still hear grounding static on a speaker. In most cases, when you turn up the volume on the speaker - the sound of the static goes up as well.

So imagine it like this. Your frontal lobe (logical part of the brain) is a beautiful harmony. But it’s saturated with auditory static. This ‘static’ is the limbic area of the brain (emotional brain), ‘interfering’ with your logic.

What Amphetamine does is therefore, turning up the volume ONLY on the music and keeping the annoying static at the same volume. So, in essence; it’s not making you smarter perse… but rather ‘upgrading’ your logical brain from an analog signal to a digital one - while the emotional brain remains analog.

I won’t pretend to fully grasp the concept, but that’s a pretty good explanation. Good to know I’m not slowly poisoning my brain or anything.

[BuzzKillington]

@Pyro

I won’t pretend to fully grasp the concept, but that’s a pretty good explanation. Good to know I’m not slowly poisoning my brain or anything.

Yeah, for legitimate reasons - it’s entirely nontoxic. And according to these studies (this was just an excerpt from one of them) it may be a mutalytic (opposite of mutagenic).