27 Feb 2023, 12:42:38
ADHD & dopamine

- ☐ ADHD and epinephrine are lacking.
- ☐ Everyone has base dopamine levels - they
- ☐ Dopamine related chemicals
- ☐ epinephrine - common name adrenalin - it's the driver of energy - we can't do anything without some in our brain & body. Released from adrenal glands, locus cerulius. It wakes up parts of the brain & body & gives us a 'readyness'. It's made from dopamin.
- ☐ L.dopa is converted into dopamine - dopamine is converted in to norepinephrine (noradrenalin) - which is converted to epinephrine.
- ☐ Dopamine increases above baseline in various ways.
- ☐ Chocolate will 1.5x your dopamine - duration short.
- ☐ Sex or pursuit of sex - 2x dopamine - dur ?
- ☐ Nicotine smoked - 2.5x - dur very short
- ☐ Cocaine - 2.5x
- ☐ Amphetamine - 10x
- ☐ Excercise - altered more if you like the excercise. 2x If you hate excercise you can get 0x no increase. Subjective release.
- ☐ Caffeine - 0.1x - but can amplify the feeling of dopamine.
- ☐ Miso-cortical process of dopamine production means if you 'think' you enjoy something it will release more dopamine.
- ☐ Boosting dopamine peeks, higher highs, using boosting chemicals etc is counter productive. It leads to a lack of drive.
- ☐ Dopamine is evolutionarily there to seek things for our good - it was a driver to seek food & water - foraging when needed - once you get the thing dopamine drops below base level. If it didn't you'd need ever increasing levels to drive foraging again.
- ☐ The higher the peek the bigger the drop below baseline - eventually you return to baseline - sometimes quicker than others.
- ☐ Addiction to dopamine highs eventually reduces the dopamine each time you repeat the act, you have to have more highs followed by lows, until you don't want to do anything.
- ☐ Pleasure pain balance.
- ☐ You synthesise a readily releasable/available pool of dopamine. Stored in vesicles. You can only release the amount ready. So after a big spike there is none left 'ready' and then you don't have enough for your baseline, hence you get the below baseline drop. Result = pain.
- ☐ The more you persue spikes, the more you lower your baseline. Addiction is a progressive narrowing of things that bring you pleasure until even those things don't bring you pleasure, then people get depressed, suicidal.
- ☐ Dopamine balance
- ☐ Book - The Molecule of More.
- ☐ Dopamine is released in to synapses/neuron in the brain - to a specific target synapse OR volumetric, to lots of synapses.
- ☐ Spiking your baseline through lots of activities is similar to one big one, you are also lowering your baseline. Long term it can pemanantly lower your baseline so you enjoy nothing (or less & less) and become depressed.
- ☐ Intermittent schedules keep you engaged and pursuing. Sometimes you don't win. They are the best to maintain dopamine levels.
- ☐ Layering many things to get the highest dopamine hit - means you need more and more to get the hit.
- ☐ Having no schedule to getting dopamine works, but it needs to be a bit random. Try flipping a coin to see to decide how many dopamine factors you will allow to be layered in. E.g. flip a coin to decide if you have music while you train.
- ☐ If you layer in too many factors, too many times, then you get higher highs & lower lows which depletes your baseline more and more and more.
- ☐ End goal same as sugar, keep dopamine levels in a fairly narrow band for as long as possible.
- ☐ Any activity that invokes a dopamine release, affects other dopamine reactions. E.g. if you eat a sweet cake A that you like you get a dopamine hit, then if you eat an amazingly sweet cake B you get an even bigger release of dopamine, then when you go back to cake A the dopamine release is less than original, it was affected by the relative enjoyment of Cake B. In this way you can ratchet a search for ever worse foods. Same with any activity. Try going back to base levels by not having stuff
- ☐ What can we take.
- ☐ Welbutrin - SSRI - is prescription also affects
- ☐ Cold water baths / showers trigger large
- ☐ L tyrocine - look in to it.
- ☐ Alpha GPC
- ☐ Macunapurines - contains l.dopa which is a precursor to dopamine. Blunts prolactin.
- ☐ Caffeine
- ☐ PEA - phenethylamine is in chocolate, can increase synaptic levels of dopamine. Maybe once a week. 500mg pea. 300mg alpha gpc. Lasts 30-45 mins
- ☐ Huperzine A - nootropic compounds
- ☐ Oxyticin - feeling good in the present moment. Social connection triggers dopamine via oxyticin.
- ☐ Indirect mechanisms - decrease cortisol and through doing that there is an indirect pathway as it helps create an environment where dopamine can flourish. Things like Maca root and cold water exposure.
- ☐ Omega 3 - EPA of 1000mg or more. Can help reduce or remove need for stimulant meds.
- ☐ 15mins of meditation reduced their attentional blinks and hence increased their focus. In normal people it also reduces their cognitive decline.
- ☐ Look more at default mode network and task network.
- ☐ Rate of blinking is related to dopamine are linked. Blinking is time perception related. Blinking is like defining a 'take' in a movie. Dopamine & blinking system is how we modulate our perception of time. High dopamine fine time slicing, time seems longer. Low dopamine, low frame rate, time seems shorter or less control/perception of time.
- ☐ 1 minute period of focusing on a specific close target, try not to blink helps you to focus on other things - like work.
- ☐ Release some physical energy, ping an elastic band, squeeze a stress ball? Helps with attention. Related to premotor circuits. Engages some of the premotor signals, by using them elsewhere.
- ☐ Stimulants make you blink less. Blinking changes how much info goes in to your nervous system. Wide angle mode, close focus mode.
- ☐ Cannabis THC increases dopamine and serotonin, alert but mellow feeling. Increases calm. It changed rates of eye blinking. Long-term it reduces blinking.
- ☐ Interoceptive awareness with ADHD, appear to be not in touch with how they felt internally. Low interceptive awareness is not a part of ADHD, it's just hard for them to focus on that data and turn it in to tasks (access their Task Directdc Network). It's hard for adhd sufferers to coordinate use of DMN v TDN.
- ☐ This coordination of DMN & TDN is coordinate by dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. Supplements that help (methylphenadate- rittalin) increases dopamine & seratonine.
- ☐ Esposito et al - frontiers and bio-sciences - find this paper ?
- ☐ Combine treatments with behavioural excercises to enhance the focus circuits to posiby train them up to reduce need for
- ☐ Review of atypical compounds for adhd. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/np/2016/1320423/
- ☐ Supplements.
- ☐ Over 1000mg of EPA helps mood
- ☐ Over 300mg of dha to help focus
- ☐ Phosphatidylserine - 200mg per day for 2 months. This also helps when used with EPA/DHA.
- ☐ Ginkgo Bilboa - may have vaso constrictive properties can cause problems, like headaches.
- ☐ Yerba Mata tea.
- ☐ Acetylcholine - neurons in your brain stem that release acetylcholine diffusely (spread wide), these neurons reside in the pedunculopontine nucleus (ppn). Nucleus basalis releases acetylcholine more directed at particular areas of the brain.
- ☐ Drugs that increase cholinergic (acetylcholine) transmission will increase focus & cognition.
- ☐ Alpha gpc. 300 - 1200mg per day. In 4 doses spread over the day. Increases transmission.
- ☐ L-tyrosine, long lived increases in dopamine. 100mg - 1200mg - dosage is hard to dial in be very careful.
- ☐ PEA - dopamanergic increase again. Be careful.
- ☐ Racetams (did he say peracetams?) new-pepped etc. 10mg twice daily. Cholinergic system, heightened states of cognitive function.
- ☐ TMS - transcranial magnetic stimulation. Non invasive magnetic coil to parts of the brain. Lower or increase brain region activity.
- ☐ Things that are making it harder for us to focus. Constant context switching.
- ☐ Smart phones, and computers. Phones in particular are small and take narrow visual focus, but contain millions of attention windows. The brain is finding it hard to leave that rapid turnover of context - constant context switching (many pages,images, videos - changing quickly).
- ☐ Unlike in the real world, where trillions of pieces of data also reside, our brains control what goes in by using a restrictional aperture or window. We see a wide view, not much focus, narrow our view to pay attention to a detail. With a phone we get trillions of pieces of data all using a focused view (narrow aperture) so it's all focus inducing. Result is overload of focus.
- ☐ Using smartphone too much can cause significant issues. 1hr a day for kids, 2hrs for adults per day. Don't use phone much. Don't take it in the office or to bed.
- ☐ Modaphonal, r-modaphonyl - is a week dopamine reuptake inhibitors. Leaves more dopamine around.
- ☐ Things that reduce your baseline
- ☐ Melatonine - sleep aid.
- ☑
- ☑

Natural Product-Derived Treatments for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Safety, Efficacy, and Therapeutic Potential of Combination Therapy