ADHD

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A casual community for people with ADHD

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Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.

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Respectful venting, including dealing with oppressive neurotypical culture, is okay.
Discussing other neurological problems like autism, anxiety, ptsd, and brain injury are allowed.
Discussions regarding medication are allowed as long as you are describing your own situation and not telling others what to do (only qualified medical practitioners can prescribe medication).

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Questions on confusing situations.
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Relevant Lemmy communities:

Neurodivergent Life Hacks

lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.

founded 2 years ago

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ADHD drugs don’t work the way we thought (www.sciencedaily.com)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz to c/adhd@lemmy.world

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ADHD stimulants appear to work less by sharpening focus and more by waking up the brain. Brain scans revealed that these medications activate reward and alertness systems, helping children stay interested in tasks they would normally avoid. The drugs even reversed brain patterns linked to sleep deprivation. Researchers say this could complicate ADHD diagnoses if poor sleep is the real underlying problem.

edit here is another article

https://medicine.washu.edu/news/stimulant-adhd-medications-work-differently-than-thought/

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[–] Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

What exactly is new here?

Their findings suggest that these medications primarily affect brain systems involved in reward and wakefulness rather than the networks traditionally linked to attention.

I'm in my 40s and got diagnosed 2 years ago. One of the first things I learned is that ADHD has to do with dopamine deficit and that the stimulants either slow down the reduction of available dopamine or increase it's release. And dopamine is a neurotransmitter directly connected with the reward center. And that's one of the reason our attention changes focus all the time, because we're looking for something new as the current task doesn't release dopamine anymore. Yaddayadda you know the drill.

Plus I sleep better when taking meds so I don't think stimulants work the same way for ADHDers as they do for neurotypicals.

Or is there something I completely missed?

[–] ccx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Norepinephrine is another neurotransmitter highly implicated in ADHD.

Quoting from Wikipedia: Norepinephrine release is lowest during sleep, rises during wakefulness, and reaches much higher levels during situations of stress or danger, in the so-called fight-or-flight response. In the brain, norepinephrine increases arousal and alertness, promotes vigilance, enhances formation and retrieval of memory, and focuses attention; it also increases restlessness and anxiety.

The trouble of being to regulate wakefulness has been in my personal experience more pronounced than attention jumping around. But that's likely fairly individual. I wouldn't be surprised if the inattentive subtype & hyperactive subtype categories we use now were related to balance of these two.

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