[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
Not really. ADHD isn’t a dopamine deficiency, so it’s not correcting a neurotransmitter imbalance. It just masks the symptoms.[/quote]
It’s not? What IS it then? How do you address and treat it, if not from the neurotransmitter angle?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
Not really. ADHD isn’t a dopamine deficiency, so it’s not correcting a neurotransmitter imbalance. It just masks the symptoms.[/quote]
It’s not? What IS it then? How do you address and treat it, if not from the neurotransmitter angle?
[/quote]
It’s far more complicated than that. As far as neurotransmitters go, the debate rages on. Most likely, just like with most mental disorders, it’s an issue of balance between many neurotransmitters. For example, we always think depression is just low serotonin, when the reality is it’s also been shown to affect the catecholamine neurotransmitters (and probably more). Not only that, but it only affects certain parts of the nervous system, and some more than others. If we look at depression medication: SSRI treatment takes the serotonin angle, MAOIs prevent degradation of dopamine, and tricyclics are adrenergic.
Personally, I’m not even necessarily convinced that dopamine is affected to a significant degree in ADHD at all. Dopamine plays a role in alertness and consciousness, which is why stimulants are so great for helping you concentrate (and keeping you up til 4am).
My opinion may not be mainstream per se, but I suspect that ADD/ADHD is what happens when societal evolution occurs at a much faster rate than can be accommodated by physiological change. Society today places much greater importance on being able to sit still and concentrate on mundane shit than it would when humans lived in the wild. We only started coming out of our hunter-gatherer stage in the last 10,000 years, which is nothing on the evolutionary time-scale. As society evolves further, we place more value on concentrating and sitting through mundane shit (yay…) which might explain part of the rise in diagnosis (notice I said PART). Believe this theory or not, you can’t possibly believe that millions of years of evolution gave us the perfect physiology to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day.
But maybe that’s more complicated than it has to be. I prefer to think of it that I just have a hard time sitting still and shutting up 
I’ve heard that add/adhd is almost exclusively an American disorder because of the way our education is set up. That is, with little active activity and lots of passive activity.
true, even in Finnish middleschools the classes are 6hours and we exercise 4h a week. And they rank at top of the world of education, though their motivation for school is one of the lowest(strange).
Just sick
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
Not really. ADHD isn’t a dopamine deficiency, so it’s not correcting a neurotransmitter imbalance. It just masks the symptoms.[/quote]
It’s not? What IS it then? How do you address and treat it, if not from the neurotransmitter angle?
[/quote]
It’s far more complicated than that. As far as neurotransmitters go, the debate rages on. Most likely, just like with most mental disorders, it’s an issue of balance between many neurotransmitters. For example, we always think depression is just low serotonin, when the reality is it’s also been shown to affect the catecholamine neurotransmitters (and probably more). Not only that, but it only affects certain parts of the nervous system, and some more than others. If we look at depression medication: SSRI treatment takes the serotonin angle, MAOIs prevent degradation of dopamine, and tricyclics are adrenergic.
Personally, I’m not even necessarily convinced that dopamine is affected to a significant degree in ADHD at all. Dopamine plays a role in alertness and consciousness, which is why stimulants are so great for helping you concentrate (and keeping you up til 4am).
But maybe that’s more complicated than it has to be. I prefer to think of it that I just have a hard time sitting still and shutting up :)[/quote]
Yeah, I fully agree that it is highly complex. I find it astounding that anybody actually believed that you could “cure” depression or ADHD by simply manipulating a single or small set of variables (neurotransmitters).
However, it is curious that “properly”-diagnosed ADHD patients will CALM down at dosages that would send us “normal” guys on an awesome tweaking fun ride. Why is that?
The whole meth thing isn’t as black and white as they make it out to be. Sure it is a devastating drug for most people but on the other side it isn’t AS bad as they make it out to be. IVing heroin on the other side seems to be worse for most people in terms of addiction.
Anyway, I’m always ASTOUNDED by what / how long people can actually survive abusing the shit out of these drugs. Amazing what the human body can deal with.
Ummm, I’m pretty sure if they were smiling in the last photo like they are in the first you couldn’t tell the difference. Kinda like that trick photography they use in those body building supplement shots.
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
Ummm, I’m pretty sure if they were smiling in the last photo like they are in the first you couldn’t tell the difference. Kinda like that trick photography they use in those body building supplement shots.[/quote]
Sure dude.
This is the most horrifying one I’ve seen yet.
http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s480x480/537746_10151346016560519_1569793644_n.jpg
LOL, nice.
[quote]Tim_Tom wrote:
This is the most horrifying one I’ve seen yet.
I lolled.
[quote]Tim_Tom wrote:
This is the most horrifying one I’ve seen yet.
This one is pretty bad too.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
Ummm, I’m pretty sure if they were smiling in the last photo like they are in the first you couldn’t tell the difference. Kinda like that trick photography they use in those body building supplement shots.[/quote]
Sure dude. [/quote]
LOL. That pic isn’t funny…but if she was in her 40’s in 1979, the fact that she is dead now really isn’t saying much.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
Yeah, I fully agree that it is highly complex. I find it astounding that anybody actually believed that you could “cure” depression or ADHD by simply manipulating a single or small set of variables (neurotransmitters).[/quote]
Yeah, who would have thought that manipulating a small set of variables (total calories and protein intake, resistance training) would be the “cure” for scrawniness?
Or, in other words, neurotransmitters are kind of a big deal.
Dopamine deficiency in ADHD patients?
Actually, I don’t know if that’s been demonstrated. What has been demonstrated is decreased blood flow to certain areas of the brain in ADHD patients versus normal patients, and somehow these drugs normalize that blood flow.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
Ummm, I’m pretty sure if they were smiling in the last photo like they are in the first you couldn’t tell the difference. Kinda like that trick photography they use in those body building supplement shots.[/quote]
Sure dude. [/quote]
LOL. That pic isn’t funny…but if she was in her 40’s in 1979, the fact that she is dead now really isn’t saying much.[/quote]
I know. My point was that the difference between her first and last shot was a lot more than lighting and a smile. And I don’t imagine the odds are too great that she lived much beyond her age in that final shot. The skull actually does look like just part of the natural progression of the photos.
Look like Canadians.
Mental illness is all about context.
Put a “schizo” in a more ancient society people will rever him as “shaman”, in an artist setting, a “genius”, perhaps.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]digitalairair wrote:
Mental illness is all about context.
Put a “schizo” in a more ancient society people will rever him as “shaman”, in an artist setting, a “genius”, perhaps.
[/quote]
True to some extent, but some folks are downright unable to function well enough to care for themselves.
That hardly is “contextual” illness.[/quote]
I’m with you Chushin. My sister is bi-polar with gnostic delusions and it doesn’t matter what context you look at it in, when she is out of her mind there is nothing artistic, creative, or anything that could be interpreted as genius.
Coincidentally, she has a genius level IQ, and on her way to a manic peak can be explosively productive. Then it gets ugly. Work and family relationships become strained. Jobs get lost, ties are broken, and its time to start calling emergency rooms or waiting for a call from the police.
It’s easy to mistake coincidence and cause from a distance, but when you are up close and personal with someone who is mentally ill and see the ugly and unglorified effect is has on the lives of the people who suffer from it and the people around them, the philosophical and romantic notions about a crazy genius become null and void.
Granted, there are the John Nash’s and Pablo Picasso’s of the world, but for every one of them there are millions currently, through out history and social context who are just plain sick, suffering and dead.
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]digitalairair wrote:
Mental illness is all about context.
Put a “schizo” in a more ancient society people will rever him as “shaman”, in an artist setting, a “genius”, perhaps.
[/quote]
True to some extent, but some folks are downright unable to function well enough to care for themselves.
That hardly is “contextual” illness.[/quote]
I’m with you Chushin. My sister is bi-polar with gnostic delusions and it doesn’t matter what context you look at it in, when she is out of her mind there is nothing artistic, creative, or anything that could be interpreted as genius.
Coincidentally, she has a genius level IQ, and on her way to a manic peak can be explosively productive. Then it gets ugly. Work and family relationships become strained. Jobs get lost, ties are broken, and its time to start calling emergency rooms or waiting for a call from the police.
It’s easy to mistake coincidence and cause from a distance, but when you are up close and personal with someone who is mentally ill and see the ugly and unglorified effect is has on the lives of the people who suffer from it and the people around them, the philosophical and romantic notions about a crazy genius become null and void.
Granted, there are the John Nash’s and Pablo Picasso’s of the world, but for every one of them there are millions currently, through out history and social context who are just plain sick, suffering and dead.
[/quote]
…But along with that, you have many people who simply do not operate on the same “wavelength” as other people and this doesn’t necessarily destroy lives or anything like that. Public perception of minor disorders would go a long way to possibly even reducing the need for medication in all cases.
I agree, mental illness can be very dark and emotionally violent…but context is everything.