I’m friends with a doctor (med student until recently) who I remember telling me about 5 years ago as a fun fact that adhd is somewhat related to sleep regulation, that the tendencies of adhd people (hyperfocusing on topics, fidgetting, etc) are mostly compensating behaviors to maintain wakefulness.
I remember because I’m actually diagnosed (very recently). Is this not common knowledge?
> Their findings suggest that these medications primarily affect brain systems involved in reward and wakefulness rather than the networks traditionally linked to attention.
It's not common knowledge that the reward system is altered by these drugs? Anyone that takes them could attest to that subjectively.
I was thinking the same thing. My understanding has always been that stimulants flood the brain with dopamine which in turns makes difficult tasks less unpleasant.
This is weird.
I’m friends with a doctor (med student until recently) who I remember telling me about 5 years ago as a fun fact that adhd is somewhat related to sleep regulation, that the tendencies of adhd people (hyperfocusing on topics, fidgetting, etc) are mostly compensating behaviors to maintain wakefulness.
I remember because I’m actually diagnosed (very recently). Is this not common knowledge?
I found this Substack to be an excellent explainer of the paper:
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelhalassa/p/the-latest-ad...
It was also gratifying as somebody who has been diagnosed with ADHD but who is seemingly resistant to treatment with stimulants.
> Their findings suggest that these medications primarily affect brain systems involved in reward and wakefulness rather than the networks traditionally linked to attention.
It's not common knowledge that the reward system is altered by these drugs? Anyone that takes them could attest to that subjectively.
I was thinking the same thing. My understanding has always been that stimulants flood the brain with dopamine which in turns makes difficult tasks less unpleasant.
I remember reading an article here of an engineer who discovered they had sleep apnea that lead to symptoms similar to ADHD
After a semi-botched deviated septum surgery, I can atest to that.
Whattt
That is massive breakthrough knowledge (unironically).
Thanks for mentioning this.