An article that I
recently read in the New York Times Magazine really got me thinking about
addiction. In this article the author gives her personal story of living with
an Adderall addiction. Before reading this, I had never thought that Adderall
could be addicting. However since I am not a user of this ADHD prescription
drug, I could not truly understand how it affects someone. Being a college
student, I am well aware of this drug being widely used on campus both with and
without a prescription. That is why I was not surprised when I read that
Adderall is the second most used drug on college campuses behind
marijuana.
A minimal amount of
studies have been performed on the long term effects of Adderall on humans, but
many studies have been done on the science of addiction. One of these studies
was done by Dr. Stephan Steidl at Loyola University Chicago. Dopamine allows
for our ability to predict rewards which elicits cravings. Adderall works by
unleashing dopamine which then creates arousal, attention, vigilance and
motivation. But addiction occurs when the overuse of this drug causes our
bodies to adjust its homeostasis by compensating for all of the extra dopamine
which leads to the reduction of dopamine receptors. Therefore, when you try and
stop giving your body this extra boost of dopamine, it will actually need more
substance in order to produce the same sensation that your body would have
before the addiction occurred. Dr. Steidl also studied cocaine, heroin and other
opiates that increase cholinergic activity at the synapse. Furthermore, once
our bodies are conditioned to this stimuli, the brain acts by increasing
dopamine projections to the synapses. Using optogenetics in mice, Dr. Steidl found
that the LDTg can modulate the activity and the repression of dopamine neurons.
It was interesting to see how the instigation of dopamine can result in the
addiction of substances like Adderall that most do not expect such a reaction
from.
References
Steidl S, Veverka K.
Optogenetic excitation of LDTg axons in the VTA reinforces operant responding
in rats. Brain Research. 2015. Vol.
1614: 85-93.
Schwartz, Casey.
Generation Adderall. The New York Times
Magazine. 2016.
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