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Re: ADD meds/motivation/concentration

Posted by desolationrower on March 21, 2009, at 2:03:19

In reply to Re: ADD meds/motivation/concentration » desolationrower, posted by garnet71 on March 19, 2009, at 10:10:48

> Hi d/r! Does this say that the difference in the way these 2 meds affect NA levels is the determinant for which med is most helpful?

-hey hey garnet

-i'm not sure as there hasn't been too much comparing their effects. not the two meds you asked about, but "Effects of methylphenidate, desipramine, and L-dopa on attention and inhibition in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." - overtoom is a paper i've seen most directly talking about different effects of adhd drugs.

> what is "pfc"

-pfc=PreFrontal Cortex. important for planning, attention, social activity, really big in humans.

> I get the first 1/2 of what you said, then didn't get the context of the second half in relation to the first.
>
> ????
>
>
> Ritalin methylphenidate is the reuptake inhibitor
>
> Adderral is the catecholemine releaser (also blocks uptake)
>
> Adderall - catecholamine activity/both phasic, and tonic.

-now that you organized my thoughts for me, maybe i need to be clearer. i think adderal (and other amphetamines), and methylphenidate, both increase tonic DA. tonic DA is combination of DA that the reuptake pumps miss, and also released right from dendrites. so mehtylphenidate increases it too, because the phasic DA doesn't get transported back in, and so becaomes the tonic level. (for DA, it just means DA the neurotransmitter level. absent drugs, an electrical impulse comes down the axon, releases DA, it is 'phasic', then the reuptake pumps most of it back in, leaving 'tonic' DA in the synapse or floating around to extrasynaptic locations. this is different than NA 'tonic' activity, which means low-level neuron electrical activity. phasic means they all fire together.) in the computational/information theory models, both NA and DA tonic activity are thought to have similar roles in terms of increasing information by means of low-level noise (which sounds paradoxical, i know).

> locus correulous/NA neurons:
> tonic - energy/awake vs. sleep
> phasic - attention to things as important
>
> Phasic DA overactivity = impulsiviness
> Phasic DA underactivity = prevents proper maintnence of long-term goal, and then allows for increased distractability. otoh inattention, inhibition and social anxiety have sometimes shown the opposite, so there isn't a clear role for DA worked out yet i don't think.
>

-^^^the stuff up is the how the drugs work explanation. the lower half is more about how you can't just look at one neurotransmitter as a 'unit', and you also can't look at one apart from another. there are a bunch of papers called things like 'neuro-computational model of the role of orbitofrontal norepinephrine in attentional dysfunction' that talk about this. and they don't all agree on thingseither.

> Ok, the second thing to know is that there isa lot of interaction in these systems, and location or even timing can have big effects. so moderate levels of NA in the frontal cortex agonize the postynaptic alpha2 adrenoceptors, and increase focus. less NA, no focus, but too much NA, alpha1 and beta adrenoceptors are ativated, and you get distracted, and pfc inhibition fails and pfc loses control->this is happening when you stress out and can't think straight.
>
> SO then pfc attentional networks are important for control of lower regions, as NA & DA in the pfc affect da release in the limbic regions. frontal NA is also important for maintaining DA in lower levels in the 'response' portion to stress, once NA drops in cortex it cascades into feeling of hopelessness & 'give up'.
>
>
>
> Hi d/r!!!

-hey hey garnet

> Oh I should have used past tense-my son did grow out of the H in ADHD.

> I'm not sure I understand what that abstract says. I have access to the full text journals through my Uni but am too lazy or impatient to go retrieve them lol. When they say "rightward bias" - do they mean tendancy to process thought using the right brain?

-arg, lucky you. i go down to the university ever few months and use the card catalogue computer to look up the papers on my list of cites and then email them all to myself.

> If I am reading this correctly the first statement that said "Previous research with neurotypical children found a rightward bias with right-hand use and a leftward bias with left-hand use"

> Means that for ADD children, they have the opposite cognitive dominance in comparison with non-ADD children. For ADD-lefthanded use left brain; righthanded use right brain; for non-ADD-lefthanded use right brain; righthanded use left brain. Am I reading this incorrectly?

-hm, it might be something more specific meant by 'bias'. you'd probably have to read the full paper. it could be something thats discussed frequently and i'm not familiar enough with this topic to recognize it.

> What does I and C subtypes mean? I guess I should Google it huh

inattenive, combined (combined meaning, people both hyperactive and inattentive)

> AD/HD-I = showed leftward bias irrespective of hand use
AD/HD-C = showed rightward bias irrespective of hand use

> "Conclusion: These findings suggest that the subtypes represent two distinct disorders and that, unlike ADHD-C, ADHD-I may not be the result of right hemisphere dysfunction."

> That would be very interesting if I understood the parameters I questioned :))

-i'm sure you'll have it all within a few days...


> Improve by switching hand dominance? That's an interesting thought. I can tell you that I've been forced to do that throughout my life. Don't laugh at me when I tell you this. Ok, it's ok to laugh I laugh about it know. I am mechanically retarded. I cannot use devices, tools, machinary. I hardly remember anything about my childhood--but remember my first week of kindergarten. I could not learn to use the scissors. I remember looking at the left-handed scissors with the turquoise rubber handles and the plain metal ones for righthanded use. I thought because I was left handed I had to use the left-handed scissors, but was trying to use them w/my right hand so they didn't work. I have to watch others use "tools" to learn how to do things. So I was watching how other people were doing it. I ended up using scissors/cutting with my right hand ever since. It sounds so stupid, but I think it was traumatic for me. I remember being so frustrated I couldn't cut paper like everyone else!! To this day, I can't use scissors with my left hand. I also got my mouth taped my first week of kindergarten, for speaking out, lol. Big piece of masking tape over my mouth. I never had a problem w/school ever since. If that happened today, the school would be sued.

> I think stuff like this really hurt my self esteem, because it was one thing after another that I could not do. Like sewing class/home ec in 7th grade. I could not ever thread the damn sewing machine. I had to be shown over and over and over each time. I've never met anyone who couldn't do so many simple things w/devices

And I'm not clumsy or uncoordinated at all. Just mechanically retarded. Somehow though, I know all about electricity, according to my military ASVAB test. Intuitively, I know how electricity wokrs, but on the mechanical portion, I did sooo bad. And after bootcamp, like taking apart and cleaning my weapon and putting it back together--everyone in the class could remember how to do it, but I had to have the person next to me help me every time. I always felt like such an idiot.

Shooting an M-16 in boot camp was like the scissors incident..lol. So you had to be real fast and load the bullets into the cartridges over and over and everything was timed, shooting at multiple targets in various postures. I didn't have time to learn how to shoot with my left hand--because I had to look at the guys on both sides of me to watch how they did everything to learn. There was no one shooting left handed around me, and I can only learn to use devices from seeing how other people do it. So, I shoot right-handed ever since. I actually did quite well too, was good at aiming I think, but I also think how accurate the weapon's sight is effects your performance. Some of them are crap and people fail I think because of the weapon, not because they can't shoot. I did not do so well last time I qualified, but then again my eyes have gotten worse since then.

-so really, it sounds like you already did that. you're kind of a fake lefthander, huh. well you are all sinister so its to be expected. weird, having to watch people to understand? i can't learn like that i have to read how to do something, getting it explained/demonstrated i can't follow. i just realized, you're watching me think and now can do that just like me? 8|

> Anyway, cognitive science is exciting (is that what it's called?)!! I wish I had taking some classes in this subject through college.


- i guess its cognitive neuroscience or neuropharmacology or something like that. you ask smart questions. just don't suck all the knowledge out of my head ok? i'd like to have something left just for me.

-d/r

 

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poster:desolationrower thread:885656
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090313/msgs/886351.html