I don't know. As someone with severe ADHD whose life was significantly impacted by a disordered dopaminergic system... yes entire classes of complex behavior can indeed be explained by a single neurotransmitter. And a simple dopamine reuptake inhibitor fixed everything for me. Shut up.
I don't think OP it's saying they are not important just that their names get used so much that they lose all meaning.
Both schizophrenia and depression are linked to dopamine and serotonin limiting our understanding of the diseases to has more or less of x neurotransmitter is naive. Same with chronic stress and cortisol and probably ADHD and dopamine.
The problem is trying to explain every single thing using the same neurotransmitters and nothing else while just serotonin alone can make you puke your guts out or see god (god meaning: whatever you believe in) or alter your sleep.
> Both schizophrenia and depression are linked to dopamine and serotonin limiting our understanding of the diseases to has more or less of x neurotransmitter is naive. Same with chronic stress and cortisol and probably ADHD and dopamine.
> The problem is trying to explain every single thing using the same neurotransmitters and nothing else while just serotonin alone can make you puke your guts out or see god (god meaning: whatever you believe in) or alter your sleep.
Yeah, I see your point. I just don't think it's fair to go on a whole spiel about how a "dopamine system" doesn't even exist when there are obvious examples of people who have defects in that system that cause a whole host of issues. Yeah sure the correct term is "dopaminergic system", but... does it really matter?
(Not to mention that dopamine is the primary reward response for "doing things you enjoy" anyway, so it's even relevant in this context. Even if you want to get technical and say endorphins are responsible for some of it...)
>I just don't think it's fair to go on a whole spiel about how a "dopamine system" doesn't even exist
Because it does not exist. The correct term is not "dopaminergic system". There is no system associated to any particular neurotransmitter.
>Not to mention that dopamine is the primary reward response for "doing things you enjoy"
It is not. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is used by neurons involved in reward circuits. The reward response consists of actual neuronal activation, not levels of extracellular neurotransmitters.
> Because it does not exist. The correct term is not "dopaminergic system". There is no system associated to any particular neurotransmitter.
The "dopaminergic system" is literally just the pathways that contain those neurotransmitters. I just finished a reply to one of your other comments that contains more info on this, but it does exist.
> Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is used by neurons involved in reward circuits. The reward response consists of actual neuronal activation, not levels of extracellular neurotransmitters.
Oops, nice catch. I'll give you this one because I did not know that actually. Still, a dopamine deficiency prevents reward circuits from being activated as much (or at all), if there's nothing to transmit it. This can contribute to executive dysfunction (which can cause ADHD).
>And a simple dopamine reuptake inhibitor fixed everything for me.
>As someone with severe ADHD whose life was significantly impacted by a disordered dopaminergic system.
The second sentence does not follow from the first. The fact that methylphenidate is effective for the treatment of ADHD does not imply that there is a "dopaminergic system" or that ADHD is caused by a disorder in dopamine specifically, any more than strep throat is caused by a penicillin deficiency.
> The fact that [...] is effective for the treatment of ADHD does not imply that there is a "dopaminergic system" or that ADHD is caused by a disorder in dopamine specifically, any more than strep throat is caused by a penicillin deficiency.
Not all cases of ADHD are like mine; there are many possible things that can lead to it. But even then, I never said my case was an amphetamine deficiency, did I?
Penicillin can help fight off the infection that caused a case of strep throat, and stimulants can help address deficiencies that led to a case of ADHD, but in both cases, one is not suffering from a drug deficiency, they are suffering from something else that the drug can potentially mitigate.
In other words, it's the effects of the drug that they need. Sometimes those effects are supposed to happen naturally within the body, such as the immune system fighting off an infection; sometimes the body was never designed to create those effects endogenously—exotic mental disorders come to mind, if a treatment can't be induced without the help of drugs.
I know that brains certainly aren't supposed to shut down and stop working despite the conscious mind trying to perform a task, yet that is what mine did. I also definitely know that it was basically insurmountable for me, and remained so for over a decade. However, taking dextroamphetamine instantly fixed that problem completely for me; my brain no longer shuts down or disagrees with me. It also knocked out every single other symptom of ADHD that I can think of. I am now in control.
So what's the difference? Dextroamphetamine in particular is primarily a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, though it does also have action on norepinephrine and serotonin (basically a bunch of the monoamine neurotransmitters). Based on my own research and what others have told me, a lot (all?) of the ADHD symptoms I experienced were most likely caused by specifically "excessive dopamine reuptake"-induced executive dysfunction, which would in fact count as a form of ADHD. It would also explain all of my symptoms.
> The release of dopamine from the mesolimbic pathway into the nucleus accumbens regulates incentive salience (e.g. motivation and desire for rewarding stimuli) and facilitates reinforcement and reward-related motor function learning
The release of dopamine? I must be reading this wrong because this implies that there is indeed a dopaminergic system; a system that has to do with dopamine.
Meh. Rant about lazy dopamine pseudoscience all you want. But like, a dopaminergic system does exist, and it does have an impact on all sorts of things.
(Also, oh look: a few of the dopaminergic pathways are responsible for facilitating addiction, too. Circling back to the original topic of the thread here. If a dopaminergic system doesn't exist, wikipedia must be all pseudoscience too, I guess.)
Most ADHD meds do more than just increase dopamine. They at the least increase Norepinephrine too, and may mildly affect serotonin. Plus we still don't fully understand these meds so there may be other things they're doing, or there may be second order effects we don't understand yet. Saying ADHD is just a dopamine deficiency is extremely reductive.
> Most ADHD meds do more than just increase dopamine. They at the least increase Norepinephrine too, and may mildly affect serotonin.
The norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors did not work for me. Even Adderall caused strong adverse reactions due to the levoamphetamine. But pure dextroamphetamine, which is primarily a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, worked perfectly.
This does still result in more norepinephrine because dopamine is a precursor and dexedrine is also still a slight NRI afaik. But the difference between a little more and a lot more is huge I suppose.
Not to mention moving my body was never as much an issue as being unable to motivate myself to do things in the first place. I would cry over not being able to do the things I wanted. But no amount of wanting would let me do them. Even though I could easily get up and do anything else.
> Saying ADHD is just a dopamine deficiency is extremely reductive.
I only speak of my specific case of ADHD. I never said ADHD is a simple dopamine deficiency. ADHD can be caused by all sorts of things.
But since my specific case was quite dopamine-related, I feel qualified enough (with experience) to refute a comment claiming that there is no "dopamine system" at all.
