– ADHD brains are said to be constantly searching for dopamine – aren’t all brains craving dopamine? What’s the difference?

Question

– ADHD brains are said to be constantly searching for dopamine – aren’t all brains craving dopamine? What’s the difference?

In: 20415

Answer 1

Say you have two people:

– A person who’s not eaten in 2 weeks

– A person who ate 3hrs ago, but is feeling peckish

What’s the difference?

Replace food with dopamine, and that’s your answer. ADHD is a **chronic** lack of multiple neurotransmitters, one of which is dopamine.

This is why ADHDers LOATHE the phrase “everyone’s ADHD once in a while”. We’re not ADHD once in a while, we’re ADHD every waking moment of every day, with some days being much worse than others.

In general, the reason for this is that ADHD brains aren’t really good at aiming at their dopamine receptors.

Instead of firing with decent accuracy, the dopamine just kinda spatters everywhere, most of it missing the target, or not getting there quickly enough. The brain then collects that undelivered dopamine and recycles it as waste, which means your brain doesn’t get enough.

That’s where reuptake inhibitors (meds) come in. They slow your body’s recycling phase down, so that more dopamine has enough time to slowly reach the destination before getting recycled