Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

I agree with the "blessing and curse" characterization. I owe my career to thousands of hours spent hyperfocused on learning programming languages for fun while I was supposed to be doing homework. On the other hand, I've come close to losing my job because of difficulty carrying out assigned tasks that don't matter to me.

Interesting contrast though: for me leetcode, certain exams, and interviews often trigger hyperfocus. Studying and assignments, as well as day-to-day work, rarely do. I take a fair bit of medication so I can do my job. I'm trying to pivot towards something which more naturally engages my interest, maybe SRE or security work.

Interesting how we're all affected differently. I recommend skimming "delivered from distraction" if you haven't already, there are some good tips in there on how ADHD folks can deliberately create the right conditions for flow.

This makes a ton of sense to me. When I was a kid, just about everyone (including my parents) knew I had ADD/ADHD, but never did anything about it. Including myself. It wasn't until I lost a job because I was so easily distractable that I realized how much of a hold it had on my life. Medication helps, but really only on making it easier to pry myself from distractions.

But this study clarifies so much of my behaviour and self-image from when I was a kid to now. I bully myself fiercely, and never understood why I should be praised for high grades, when it was something expected of me. That definitely extends to now, where I can finish/deliver a product, but feel _nothing_ about it. No sense of accomplishment, no relief that something's shipped. Nothing. It stops me from taking on hobbies or really doing anything with the material that I learn. Leads to regular burnout and cycles of depression.

The article references methylphenidate as a good drug for ADHD, specifically for motivation. This makes me sad, because I'm on it, and not feeling very motivated.

I wonder what it means if I can drink 4 espressos before bed and sleep like a baby... does anyone have research on caffeine metabolisms and ADHD / other diagnoses?

Indeed thank you, but no follow-ups or recent developments in other 'Racetams it seems. Modafinil is the only one that comes to mind that is atypical but has made strides in being a prescribed alternative.

Sure, technically, but read the FDA paper on it's pharmacokinetics.

Smoking, shooting, or squirting it up your ass won't do the trick. But injecting it would put it in direct contact with red blood cells, and so would rectal administration via absorption through rectal mucosa.

Lisdexamfetamine needs to pass through the GI tract where there's proper enzymatic activity.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6805701/

"The environment in the rectum is considered relatively constant and stable and has low enzymatic activity in comparison to other sections of the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, drugs can partially bypass the liver following systemic absorption, which reduces the hepatic first-pass effect."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2898170/

"Oral absorption of LDX was assessed in rat portal and jugular blood, and perfusion of LDX into isolated intestinal segments of anesthetized rats was used to assess regional absorption. .... LDX and d-amphetamine were detected in blood following perfusion of the rat small intestine but not the colon"

"The intact prodrug, LDX, was readily absorbed from the GI tract after oral administration, with relatively high levels of LDX detected in the portal blood of rats. When LDX was perfused into isolated segments of rat duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, it was absorbed into the systemic circulation; however, LDX was not absorbed during perfusion into colonic segments. These findings indicate that absorption of LDX occurs via carrier-mediated transport in the small intestines and are consistent with the physicochemical properties of LDX (ie, high aqueous solubility of greater than 0.85 g/mL within the physiologically relevant pH range of 1 to 812 and low lipophilicity [logP–1.75, unpublished data]), which would predict poor passive diffusion across biologic membranes"

But hey, here I am arguing on my weekend about why exactly putting a certain amphetamine prodrug up your ass won't work. What are we doing with our lives?