Hi. In this thread I was hoping we could discuss adrenaline, the stress hormones, stress, and the relationship between adrenaline levels and ADHD.

It's commonly asserted that somebody with ADHD produces less dopamine and noradrenaline in the brain.

Is this true? Is it true uniformly (i.e. for the entire brain or only certain parts)?

Does this include adrenaline?

Adrenaline, dopamine and noradrenaline are all produced from the same source. Adrenaline is created from noradrenaline which is created from dopamine. It follows that inability to produce noradrenaline or dopamine would imply inability to produce adrenaline, yes?

I imagine that adrenaline is never mentioned because it is not psychoactive (thus an imbalance manifests purely physically - not through concentration problems or memory problems).

Adrenaline is responsible for many things, including impairing short-term memory (temporary and fully-reversible destruction of dendritic spines in the brain), as well as formation of the brain during development from embryo to adult.

Given the decreased adrenaline and noradrenaline levels, does this perhaps explain some ADHD behaviour, such as ignorance of threat/harm in many situations? I know as a kid I was described as "extremely bold" and essentially fearless.

Decreased adrenaline and noradrenaline levels should correspond with decreased physical readiness and muscle reactivity. Perhaps it isn't only low dopamine levels responsible for poor physical coordination as children?

Still, as a kid, I was extremely active. Amazing feats of athleticism, stamina and endurance were very rarely beyond me. I was very co-ordinated jumping from tree to tree, just not catching a ball with one hand (although 2 was easy as pie, which is apparently rare).

Is it possible that decreased adrenaline levels account for some of the neural variation seen in people with ADHD?

Increased testosterone levels at birth for example seem to increases neuron density in the right hemisphere of the brain compared with the left. This should technically mean a higher incidence of left-handedness and ambidexterity in people with ADHD. Being "right-brained" certainly seems to have many traits in common with having ADHD. This link seems tenuous given that brain laterality is pop science, but there could be something interesting hidden here.

Does anybody know the extent of the decrease, quantitatively, for any or all of the neurotransmitters associated with ADHD?

Is serotonin associated with ADHD? My guess is no, since it's not derived from adrenaline or dopamine.

How do most cases of ADHD regulate noradrenaline/dopamine production? That is: how does it differ from that of normal people?

Does increasing noradrenaline production increase adrenaline production? It seems fairly evident it does (since the brain is all about equilibriums). Is the reverse true, though?

What do blood-sugar levels have to do with ADHD? Why do people with ADHD typically experience more severe reactions to sugar? Typically they experience reactive hypoglycemia. Is this perhaps a coping mechanisms because hypoglycemia triggers a stress response, causing the body to release adrenaline and noradrenaline? A sort of round-about method of trying to balance neurotransmitter levels?

Stimulants increase adrenaline and/or noradrenaline. This in turn increases/stabilises blood-sugar levels. Does this perhaps explain supposed carb binging after the medication wears off?

What about blood flow to the brain? Is it less in people with ADHD? Why? Is it because of decreased adrenaline? I thought increasing adrenaline was the reason for decreased bloodflow to the brain?

Please try and support your findings with reference studies, and if using websites, try and determine if the author has made a clear distinction between adrenaline and noradrenaline - they are very similar, even ignoring their names. Confusing things more, adrenaline and noradrenaline are typically always released together under normal circumstances.

Langseth and Dowd found that 74% of 261 hyperactive children in their study had abnormal sugar metabolism. These children displayed reactive hypoglycaemia after eating refined sugar. What happened metabolically was that the large ingestion of sugar caused a surge of insulin to be released by the pancreas. This caused, in reaction, a significant decrease in blood sugar levels accompanied by a surge in the epinephrine levels.Hypoglycaemia also increases norepinephrine levels. Seems this study omitted that. It was taken from a study in favour of sugar being related to ADHD. Possibly biased. Could somebody verify the findings of that study it quotes?

Very nice post fuse!

When I was researching how to deal with the adrenal side effects I noticed a few posts about people taking clonidine with adderall. While reading about clonidine I found an interesting article about the imidazole-receptor.

The imidazole or I1 receptor sounds like a specialized alpha-2 receptor located on the brainstem. The bloodpressure lowering effects of clonidine are thoguht to come from clonidine being an I1 agonist.

I also found a drug Moxonidine which is not FDA approved which specificly targets the I1 receptor. There were some animal studies on moxonidine -

Based on animal models, it has demonstrated that moxonidine is capable of:

normalising plasma insulin levels
improving glucose uptake in peripheral cells
lowering lipid levels
decreasing food intake and reducing weight gain in obese animals.However Moxonidine failed phase 3 trials when given to cardiac patients increased their mortality significantly.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14607206

I guess my point is stress may play a significant role in blood sugar/insulan response.

I Just switched back to Adderall + clonidine at night. Definitly feeling the adrenal effects. Clonidine is very interesting it quickly calms my brain + makes me a bit more social. Later (~1hour) it speeds up the decline of the adrenal side effects. I also had some very refreshing sleep. I just started this combo so its too soon to tell how its going to work long term. It may be decreasing the effectiveness of adderall to help me focus.

BobC

imidazole or I1 receptor

never heard of this chap

off to find more.

:-)

Still, as a kid, I was extremely active. Amazing feats of athleticism
oh yeah, school wise (not behaviourly) too.. but I wasn't exactly in shape, though.. my talent remains, but it's not developed as some have :p

Relatively, i did have bad acne, and my index finger is quite shorter than my middle and index.. my index is not that much longer than my pinky finger, a sign of high exposure to testosterone after birth:confused:

Hypoglycemia will result in elevated epinepherine levels; when your blood sugar is low, the adrenal gland will burn almost anything to keep the neurons firing.
However, ADD isn't generally marked by retarted dopamine or epinepherine production; if that were true, dextroamphetamine would make matters alot worse (by burning out depleted neurotransmitter sources, causing neurons to basically fire blanks). Though the mechanics of ADD are still hotly debated, the general medical consensus is that it's caused by premature re-uptake or overactive expiration of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that controls short term memory, logic and attention). That means that dopamine is either getting stored too much (and therefore not used enough) or it's getting pushed out of the brain too quickly.
Dextroamphetamine (the only ADD medication I've studied at length) combats the first possible cause by pushing itself into the dopamine (and norepinepherine) storage vessels, thereby forcing the neurotransmitters into the presynaptic gap (where it's used by the neurons to transmit information). Cocaine (thank god noone tried to use that as an ADHD medication) would attack the latter cause by stripping away the chemical that signals dopamine to leave the brain (to be filtered out of the body).
While homeopathic medications like Gingko may help some with the symptoms, they don't fix the underlying chemical problems. Gingko and ginseng increase circulation and help facilitate transfer of oxidants between the blood and surrounding tissue; however, they do nothing with neural dopamine or norephinepherine.

Hope that helped,
-- Allen

But literature seems to indicate that cocaine and amphetamine are both dopamine reuptake inhibitors? Indeed, recent research on an MAO-B inhibitor called Selegiline shows effectiveness equal with Ritalin (methylphenidate). MAOIs prevent the recycling/breakdown of amines like dopamine.

Indeed, Ritalin, which is fairly similar to cocaine, acts in same way cocaine does; it binds to the dopamine transporter, hence inhibiting the recycling process, leaving more dopamine in the synaptic cleft. Considering Ritalin provides very similar therapeutic effects to amphetamine (right?), wouldn't this imply that rapid recycling is the cause of ADHD, not excessive storage of catecholamines?

I believe the reason cocaine is a poor choice as an ADHD drug is that it doesn't last long enough (which increases abuse potential, but also you want an ADHD drug which will last through the day).

I don't understand what you mean by this:

However, ADD isn't generally marked by retarted dopamine or epinepherine production; if that were true, dextroamphetamine would make matters alot worse (by burning out depleted neurotransmitter sources, causing neurons to basically fire blanks).

I only just realised this, but it's important none-the-less: amphetamine doesn't increase production/flow of amines except in high amounts. In the therapeutic doses used in ADHD treatment, amphetamine's mode of action is almost exclusively reuptake inhibition. Comparatively, methamphetamine (desoxyn), is a weak reuptake inhibitor, but a strong dopamine 'releaser'.

Basically, I'm not sure I understand how ADHD isn't caused by reduced production of certain catecholamines.

Thanks for the response. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm grilling you.

Adrenaline (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/research_hypoglycemia.html#ADRENALINE) is produced from food source in the form of phenylalanine (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/richsources.html#Phenylalanine) or tyrosine. See:
http://curezone.com/upload/PDF/Articles/jurplesman/adrenalin_pathway_gif_578_575_pixels.pdf
It has been pointed out in this thread that ADHD people usually suffer from hypoglycemia, which is a sugar handling problem and is caused by prediabetic insulin resistance. This can be medically tested with the four hour Medical Test for Hypoglycemia (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/testing_hypoglycemia.html)

Unfortunately most conventional doctors are not familiar with this test, mainly because hypoglycemia is not as yet recognized as a medical illness. It seems that medical illnesses are only recognized when they can be treated by drugs. This also explains why treatment of mood disorders by conventional means (drugs and/or psychotherapy) are so disappointing, although it may keep the mental health industry alive and kicking.

See:

Hypoglycemia is an unnamed Medical Condition (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/PTStress.html#Hypoglycemia)

The subject of adrenaline is important is in understanding various mood disorders. It functions to increase blood sugar levels to the brain and other organs, when the brain senses a energy starvation. It triggers the conversion of glycogen (http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=define%3A+glycogen&btnG=Google+Search) sources in the liver and muscles into glucose so as to feed the brain in an hypoglycemic episode.

http://curezone.com/upload/PDF/Articles/jurplesman/AdrenalineActivation.pdf

Hypoglycemia (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/what_is_hypo.html) is an important factor on most mood disorders such as OCD, depression, drug addiction and so on.

See:
Self-help Personal Growth Psychotherapy (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/self-help_personal_growth.html)
as to how it affects personality.

Jur Plesman

Fuse,

If you're really 19, can I adopt you? 'Cause you're one smart cookie! That's off-topic, I'll grant, but it's all I really have to add here.... Y'all are way too smart for me! Thanks for the info. I know from my genes, personal experience, and my body's response to the Zone diet that I've got a strong sugar reaction. What you folks are saying makes a whole lot of sense to me.

Sandy

Ataxia, incoordination, sometimes mistaken for "drunkenness"
:)wow, I thought this might be related to ADD

Automatic behavior, also known as automatism

I had a few blood tests done last year, nothing wrong w/me according to those .

http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/hypoglycemic_diet.html

:)wow, I thought this might be related to ADD



I had a few blood tests done last year, nothing wrong w/me according to those .

http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/hypoglycemic_diet.html
[/URL]

The trouble that most conventional doctors do not know how to test for hypoglycemia, which is described here:

[url=http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/testing_hypoglycemia.html] Medical Test for Hypoglycemia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatism_%28medical%29)

It has been pointed out in this thread that ADHD people usually suffer from hypoglycemia, which is a sugar handling problem and is caused by prediabetic insulin resistance....[/URL]
The subject of adrenaline is important is in understanding various mood disorders. It functions to increase blood sugar levels to the brain and other organs, when the brain senses a energy starvation. It triggers the conversion of [URL="http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=define%3A+glycogen&btnG=Google+Search"]glycogen (http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/PTStress.html#Hypoglycemia) sources in the liver and muscles into glucose so as to feed the brain in an hypoglycemic episode.
Jur Plesman

Does this mean that those with ADHD are likely to self-medicate with adrenaline seeking activities or sugar binges? Or that hypoglycemia is an alternative explanation for ADHD behaviour?

Very interested in this answer!

I had a few blood tests done last year, nothing wrong w/me according to those .


A single blood test might not show a result because blood sugar levels change over time. Try having some white toast with honey and a cup of coffee then having the test an hour and a half later :)


Worked for me :)

But literature seems to indicate that cocaine and amphetamine are both dopamine reuptake inhibitors? Indeed, recent research on an MAO-B inhibitor called Selegiline shows effectiveness equal with Ritalin (methylphenidate). MAOIs prevent the recycling/breakdown of amines like dopamine.

Indeed, Ritalin, which is fairly similar to cocaine, acts in same way cocaine does; it binds to the dopamine transporter, hence inhibiting the recycling process, leaving more dopamine in the synaptic cleft. Considering Ritalin provides very similar therapeutic effects to amphetamine (right?), wouldn't this imply that rapid recycling is the cause of ADHD, not excessive storage of catecholamines?

I believe the reason cocaine is a poor choice as an ADHD drug is that it doesn't last long enough (which increases abuse potential, but also you want an ADHD drug which will last through the day).

I don't understand what you mean by this:



I only just realised this, but it's important none-the-less: amphetamine doesn't increase production/flow of amines except in high amounts. In the therapeutic doses used in ADHD treatment, amphetamine's mode of action is almost exclusively reuptake inhibition. Comparatively, methamphetamine (desoxyn), is a weak reuptake inhibitor, but a strong dopamine 'releaser'.

Basically, I'm not sure I understand how ADHD isn't caused by reduced production of certain catecholamines.

Thanks for the response. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm grilling you.

Im new to this site but am hoping to learn from all of you. I used to live on adderall and paxil but no longer are able to because of insurance reasons. This has left me searching for OTC products to help me deal with my ADHD. Although its not as strong I have found that a supplement called Adrenalean is very similar to paxil.

You might be asking what does this have to do with this post? It contain a few different ingredeints that seem to have action with the chemicals in the brain that are being discussed in this thread. have any of you heard of it and do any of you know why it might be working so well for me?

I got it from a good friend who used it to help him concentrate while studying for his bar exam. He said it was the next bestthing to aderall (which he used a lot of in law school). At his suggestion I tried it.

I have a hard time understainding how this stuff works. I just know it works for me and if someone might be able to explain it to me in simple terms that would be great.

RE:... Although its not as strong I have found that a supplement called Adrenalean is very similar to paxil. ...

The only thing relevant to ADD that I can find in its ingredient list is phenylethylamine, which is generally where dopamine production starts (although the EvoSyn blend does contain anhydrous caffeine). Synephrine could possibly have some relevant CNS effects since it's a chemical analogue to ephedrine, but I have serious doubts there.
If a lack of energy is the major mitigating factor in your form of ADD, then a product like this *might* help, though no more than regular exercise and a vitamin B regimen (which is much safer, btw).

-- CM