im confused as to why people with adhd have this and i have heard stories that my mother (who has adhd) has taken handfuls of methamphetamine salts and then just gone straight to sleep despite them being stimulants.
is this real and if so how do they work?
In: Biology
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Your brain (and body) uses neurotransmitters as messengers to communicate and make cells do things.
Many neurotransmitters do a lot of different things, which can explain the various symptoms.
The whole pathophysiology (how it works) of ADHD is not yet clear: but patients with ADHD seem to have some sort of impairment in the neurotransmitter systems in the brain, particularly those involving dopamin and norepinephrine.
Stimulants (such as amphetamines) affect these very neurotransmitters with relatively high precision. They can act in different ways but in an easy way to understand it is that they make the existing dopamin and norepinephrine act longer by inhibiting their reuptake after release.
Think of it like two people calling each other, the stimulant makes the phone call last longer and make the two people on the phone call talk more.
Since people with ADHD seem to have a dysfunction in these very systems, making the messengers within the systems act longer or more efficiently is a good way to treat the condition.
Edit:
Some people have pointed out that this explanation, though simplified, is still too difficult to grasp. And that’s fair.
Here’s for a five year old:
Your brain is like a house with people in it. And people in this house needs to talk to each other using words.
Some people in this house have a hard time communicating with each other.
ADHD medications make the people in the house talk to each other better.
Source: Pharmacist student.
Answer: These conditions are often thought of as an imbalance. An imbalance that can be corrected by offsetting the imbalance, or, evening out.
But if normal people take them then it creates an imbalance which your brain reacts to, and tries to correct by offsetting.
Finally, researchers arnt sure about the causal mechanism that creates seemingly paradoxical effects.
So far everyone is giving very technical answers, but this is explain like I’m five, so that’s what I’ll do. (I have ADHD and take extended release adderall.)
Picture your brain as a TV set. The different thoughts you have are ‘channels.’ You can ‘flip’ through your channels at will, going back and forth right? Well, someone with ADHD can’t control their TV channels. They will be focused on one channel, then all of a sudden, the channel changes. They can’t focus on this new channel because they still remember the last channel, but not really. Also, some channels are louder than others. Some channels have picture in picture or are paused or going double speed.
All of this is EXHAUSTING to keep track of which drains your focus and energy. Adderall and other stimulants gives your brain the energy to keep up with itself, ‘giving you back the control of your TV.’
Hope that helps!
In ADHD part of the brain is not stimulated enough, which leads to the patient constantly seeking input.
Stimulants bring this part of the brain back to normal.
In my many years on Adderall l, I can say that the stimulants still have a classic stimulant effect on our bodies, but they also correct chemical imbalances in our brains, allowing us to pay attention more effectively and stay more on focus.
Yes it’s real, I took an adderall from my friend (his moms meds) for fun before a concert and ended up feeling extremely calm and focused / bored all night!!! That confirmed to me I have a slight case of ADHD but high functioning and doesn’t really show up to people.
A friend of mine has ADHD and says they feel like they are over-tired, you know that level of tired where you’re drunk and can’t control yourself well. The stimulants make them less tired and they regain control. That’s how they see it.
EDIT: Which they say is also why they can take TOO many stimulants and be wired just like everybody else.
The part of their brains that deal with concentration and impulse control are essentially under stimulated.
You know how you teleport round the map when you’re lagged to fuck?
Speed up the connection, start to move normally. You can keep up with everything that’s going on, and don’t constantly fly off at a tangent.
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