Obviously simplifying it a lot in the title, but that’s the gist, I’ve learned that stimulants are prescribed to people with ADHD, and it calms them down/makes them more normal, so how?
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Tasks need to have an inherent amount of stimulation (or, equivalently, provide enough dopamine) in order for our brains to maintain attention. If a task isn’t stimulating enough, our minds wander and eventually we do something else. As we continue doing a particular task, the amount of stimulation it provides decreases.
The dopamine responsible for attention and task maintenance has to hang around in the brain long enough to fit into the receptors on your neurons; if it gets reabsorbed too quickly, your attention wanders. In people with ADD, dopamine is reabsorbed too quickly.
Stimulants work by slowing down the rate at which dopamine is reabsorbed in the brain, so that more of it hangs around to provide the neural “reward” that keeps you on task.
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