Call your pharmacy ahead of time to find out if your medication is available. These two medications can cause effects in people with certain medical conditions.
People with certain health issues may need to avoid taking these drugs. The chart below lists medical conditions you should discuss with your doctor before taking Adderall or Ritalin. Both medications are pregnancy category C drugs.
This means animal studies of the drugs have shown side effects on the fetus. Adderall can pass into breast milk, which means the drug may pass to your child when you breastfeed them. Some studies show that Ritalin can also pass from mother to child through breast milk.
These drugs may cause side effects in your child. Talk to your doctor if you take Adderall or Ritalin. Adderall and Ritalin both interact with certain other drugs. Make sure you tell your doctor about all of the prescription and over-the-counter medications, supplements, and herbs you take. This way, your doctor can watch for drug interactions. According to a review of studies spanning 40 years, stimulant medications are effective in treating 70 to 80 percent of children and adults with ADHD.
With that being said, there are some minor differences between the two drugs, such as how quickly and how long they work in your body. Work with your doctor to find the best drug for your ADHD. From missed symptoms to misdiagnoses, women with ADHD fight a unique battle of their own.
On most days, having ADHD is a rollercoaster of successes and failures. Here's a day-in-the-life account of what it's like to live with the condition. While ADHD can exact a price on a person's organizational skills and ability to focus, the condition comes with certain advantages. Here's one…. Some studies suggest that certain nutritional supplements and herbal remedies can relieve ADHD symptoms. Instead, they help the PFC better do what it's supposed to do. A behavioral disorder marked by hyperactivity, impulsivity and the inability to concentrate, ADHD has been treated for more than a half-century with Ritalin, Adderall and other stimulant drugs.
New reports also indicate these meds have lately been embraced by healthy Americans of all ages as a means to boost mental performance. Yet, despite their prevalence, we know remarkably little about how these drugs work, especially at lower doses that have been proven clinically to calm behavior and focus attention in ADHD patients, says Berridge.
In , his team reported that therapeutic doses of Ritalin boosted neurotransmitter levels primarily in the PFC, suggesting a selective targeting of this region of the brain.
To answer this, the pair studied PFC neurons in rats under a variety of Ritalin doses, including one that improved the animals' performance in a working memory task of the type that ADHD patients have trouble completing.
Using a sophisticated new system for monitoring many neurons at once through a set of microelectrodes, the scientists observed both the random, spontaneous firings of PFC neurons and their response to stimulation of an important pathway into the PFC, the hippocampus.
Much like tiny microphones, the electrodes record a pop every time a neuron fires, Devilbiss explains. Analyzing the complex patterns of "voices" that emerge is challenging but also powerful, because it allows study of neurons on many levels. When they listened to individual PFC neurons, the scientists found that while cognition-enhancing doses of Ritalin had little effect on spontaneous activity, the neurons' sensitivity to signals coming from the hippocampus increased dramatically.
Under higher, stimulatory doses, on the other hand, PFC neurons stopped responding to incoming information. More intriguing still were the results that came from tuning into the entire chorus of neurons at once.
Those with higher dopamine levels, on the other hand, made decisions that showed they were more sensitive to differences in the amount of money they could earn by choosing the harder test -- in other words, they focused more on the potential benefits. Westbrook said the latter held true whether the subjects' dopamine levels were naturally higher or whether they had been artificially elevated by medications. Westbrook said the results support the idea that, medication or no medication, dopamine typically acts as a motivation regulator for human brains.
All of us have slightly different base levels of dopamine, said Frank, who is affiliated with the Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown. Those who have lower levels tend to be more risk-averse, because they spend more time focusing on the potential costs of completing a difficult task. Those with higher levels tend to be more impulsive and active, because they focus more on the benefits.
No single dopamine level is inherently better than another, Frank said -- an active, high-dopamine person may take fulfilling, happiness-boosting risks but may also be more prone to injury; a risk-averse, low-dopamine person may avoid injuries and disappointments but may also miss out on adventures.
And dopamine levels don't necessarily stay the same from one day to the next: They may decrease in response to danger or lack of sleep, and they may increase when people feel safe and supported. In other words, Westbrook said, most people can trust natural dopamine levels to guide them toward the right decisions. Of course, previous experiments have made it clear that many people with particularly low dopamine levels -- including those who are diagnosed with depression or ADHD -- can benefit from dopamine-boosting stimulant medications.
But he said those medications are never certain to improve the lives of those who are healthy and who choose to use them recreationally. Doing so could, in fact, lead some to make poorer decisions. Westbrook and Frank hope their study helps future researchers and medical professionals better understand cognitive mechanisms, allowing them to identify connections between dopamine levels and disorders such as anxiety, depression, ADHD and schizophrenia. Materials provided by Brown University.
Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Science News. Story Source: Materials provided by Brown University. Journal Reference : A. Westbrook, R.
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