A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with adhd and I’m having a hard time understanding how it works, being a child of the 80s/90s it was always just explained in a very simplified manner and as just kind of an auxiliary problem. Thank you in advance.
In: Biology
Imagine two college students: Student A and Student B.
Student A is currently working their way through school. A lot of their time is spent at their minimum wage job since rent and tuition are expensive.
Student B on the other has a trust fund from a grandparent which pays out based on how many units they’re taking. They still work a part time job a few hours each weekend, but it’s at their family friends business where they’re getting paid under the table above minimum wage.
Student A has to work in order to go to school. And at minimum wage they have to work a lot of days and a lot of hours just to be able to attend class. Maybe they don’t even take a full load each semester because they just don’t have the time or money. Maybe some weeks they just have to skip a class all together.
Student B doesn’t have to worry about that. They get paid when they attend school. When they *do* work, they make well above minimum wage, so even if something happens with the trust fund payout during enrollment they’re set; they have money saved up. Also, if they have midterms or finals coming up they can just take time off from work.
In this analogy Student A would be the brain of a person with ADHD and Student B would be a neurotypical brain.
The “money” in this analogy would be neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin. “Work” would be some fun or interesting activity/task, and “school” would be some task you *have* to do.
Now, as to the why. Basically those neurotransmitters play a part in making sure animals do things they’re supposed to do in order to survive like eat, sleep, and have sex.
Since humans are still animals the neurotransmitters do that for us too. But they also play a part in making us do things that, while not necessary for our survival, play a part in making us more successful humans. Things like finishing homework, doing a project for work, or even doing the dishes or taking out the trash.
People with ADHD usually will get less of these neurotransmitters for performing a task, or will get none of them at all for some tasks. So often, in order to complete these neurotransmitter-negative tasks they will have to complete neurotransmitter-positive tasks either prior to or simultaneously.
That’s where the attention deficit and hyperactivity come into play. The task that’s not holding their attention is not providing any dopamine and/or the surplus from their previous task has run out. So they have to (sometimes constantly) search for a new task to provide that dopamine/neurotransmitter.
Taking medicine makes the brain create more of these neurotransmitters so our brain is okay with us doing tasks that aren’t immediately or inherently gratifying.
Taking Ritalin or Adderal for Student A in this analogy would be the equivalent of getting a full ride scholarship. Now, Student A doesn’t have to work and make money anymore in order to go to school. They have all the money they need so they can just focus on school.
Now, that ELI5 takes a lot of liberties and has a lot of inaccuracies for a number of reasons, but it’s the general gist.
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