Posted by metric on May 4, 2009, at 16:57:02
In reply to Re: drug for motivation!, posted by linkadge on May 3, 2009, at 20:40:32
> Stimulants don't always improve motivation however. It depends on the ballance of monoamines in the prefrontal cortex. If dopamine concentrations are already high in the prefrontal cortex, you can actually induce depression by elevating them further.
>
> This is why people take their time and sip coffee when performing certain tasks. The right ratio of dopamine to serotonin will increase motivation, but if you increase dopamine too far you can start to induce depressive, antisocial and/or amotivational syndromes.
>Wow. I had no idea that's why people sip their coffee. I thought they just savored the taste. Or preferred the sustained delivery and consequent minimization of crashes.
> This is why some people compain of depression and apathy on stimulans. If you reach this point, the stimulant does not increase motivation but rather decreases it. In this case, you may actually benifit from a lower dose, or even the addition of an SSRI.
Or neurotransmitter depletion and/or receptor desensitization and/or a million other factors.
Unfortunately, neuroscience hasn't reached the stage where such nuanced interpretations of neurochemical phenomena can be regarded as more than wild conjecture. The brain remains a black box, especially as it concerns the more subtle variations that give rise to changes in mood-related areas.
poster:metric
thread:893899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090426/msgs/894247.html