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Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

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Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#11

Post by atwrk »

kibwen wrote: post #10
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #5

"Moreover, a similar activation pattern related to lifetime ADHD may suggest that the impact of early life stress on ADHD may possibly be mediated by a dysfunctional reward pathway." What is a dysfunctional reward pathway?

The brain releases dopamine as a "reward"; it's a feel-good chemical that contributes to positive reinforcement of various behaviors. People with ADHD have limited dopamine response, which can express as a lack of motivation relative to others.

nitpick: dopamine means reward anticipation, the longing for the goal, not the satisfaction of achieving the goal.

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#12

Post by gradus_ad »

throw88888 wrote: post #8
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #5

"Moreover, a similar activation pattern related to lifetime ADHD may suggest that the impact of early life stress on ADHD may possibly be mediated by a dysfunctional reward pathway." What is a dysfunctional reward pathway?

It is stated just above the quoted text. Basically a lower-than-expected response to reward anticipation and a higher-than-expected response upon reward delivery. I.e. the typical ADHD problem of instant vs delayed gratification and how the brain responds to it. Neurotypical people’s brains seem to be better at rewarding in anticipation and not just on actual delivery. IIUC

If you're thinking about 10 different things in quick succession spontaneously flipping between each without control, your brain can't deliver sustained anticipatory reward for the one thing you actually should be working towards. The brain doesn't magically "know" what is important, presence in consciousness is what determines importance and reward allocation. Normal brains are able to fixate without tremendous effort.

My whole life I could barely sustain a conversation with someone because the moment they started speaking I'd reflexively begin thinking about something else. But when I tried Adderall I could actually have genuine conversations with people, hearing them and thinking about what they were saying and then responding, doing this repeatedly for many minutes. It felt like a superpower.

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#14

Post by malfist »

atwrk wrote: post #11
kibwen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain releases dopamine as a "reward"; it's a feel-good chemical that contributes to positive reinforcement of various behaviors. People with ADHD have limited dopamine response, which can express as a lack of motivation relative to others.

nitpick: dopamine means reward anticipation , the longing for the goal, not the satisfaction of achieving the goal.

I was completely sure you were wrong and went and did a bunch of reading on Wikipedia and realized that my understanding of the reward pathway was incorrect. Thanks for educating me a bit today.

I thought dopamine was both the anticipatory neurotransmitters and the reward. But the reward neurotransmitters are different, they're your endorphins, endogenous opioids.

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#15

Post by austin-cheney »

throw88888 wrote: post #8
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #5

"Moreover, a similar activation pattern related to lifetime ADHD may suggest that the impact of early life stress on ADHD may possibly be mediated by a dysfunctional reward pathway." What is a dysfunctional reward pathway?

It is stated just above the quoted text. Basically a lower-than-expected response to reward anticipation and a higher-than-expected response upon reward delivery. I.e. the typical ADHD problem of instant vs delayed gratification and how the brain responds to it. Neurotypical people’s brains seem to be better at rewarding in anticipation and not just on actual delivery. IIUC

Yes, the utility behind that behavior is that the brain floods itself with dopamine when task completion feels imminently close in anticipation of the approaching reward. The flooding of dopamine, which is the motivation, does not suggest increased dopamine reception, which is the reward.

That utility alone accounts for gambling addiction. Consider that slot machines are a game of random chance against fixed odds. Every time you play the chance of winning is random against the same odds just like the last time. The more a person plays consecutively without winning, a losing streak, the more the brain anticipates winning the next time which builds dopamine anticipation in the brain even though a person is just as likely to continue losing into the future on each iteration.

What's more interesting is that this addiction behavior can be flicked on or off instantly, like a light switch, with medication. What's more strange though is that medically induced gambling addiction, yes that is a very real thing, effects females far more than males. I don't know if the cause of difference in behavior by sex is identified.

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#16

Post by potato3732842 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #6
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #2

So, is this just a way to do early measurements, to determine if someone might develop ADHD later. Not any indicator of things to 'do' to help not develop ADHD later? No actions to take? " In contrast, during reward delivery, activation of the bilateral insula, right pallidum and bilateral putamen increased with EFA. There was a significant association of lifetime ADHD symptoms with lower activation in the left ventr…

> No actions to take? The actions to take would appear to depend upon whether one wishes to have fewer adults with lifetime ADHD symptoms, or more*. The childhood adversities to affect either way are from [RutterQuinton77] and listed in TFA's Table S1, abbreviated here: *Low educational level parent with neither school nor training *Overcrowding more than 1.0 person/room or housing The ones marked with * are those fa…

Tread carefully. Your comment has the aroma of exactly the sort of first order thinking that over the past 50yr resulted in welfare programs exacerbating that exact list of problems (among others) that you're saying we can solve with more welfare.

I don't know what the solution is but using government to replace or supplement the kind of support that people traditionally got from their family, friends and network has only reduced the strength of those support streams over the decades.

To call out one well studied example, you can't just do first order stuff like extend bennies to single moms because then people won't get married in the first place and it's easier to split up if you're not married then you've got a legit single mom on your hands with all the poorer outcomes that entails. You can play whack a mole refining the rules forever but that has its own problems.

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#18

Post by malfist »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #2

So, is this just a way to do early measurements, to determine if someone might develop ADHD later. Not any indicator of things to 'do' to help not develop ADHD later? No actions to take? " In contrast, during reward delivery, activation of the bilateral insula, right pallidum and bilateral putamen increased with EFA. There was a significant association of lifetime ADHD symptoms with lower activation in the left ventr…

That's not really how research papers go. You prove a causal link between two things before a future paper tests methodologies to address the link.

Though popular reporting on these types of papers will often have speculation from the journalist

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#19

Post by FrustratedMonky »

vintermann wrote: post #13

[flagged]

"a reasonable way to feel given what you've been through"

Isn't our brain made of chemicals of all kinds, and how we 'feel' is based on many chemical interactions, and so the "a reasonable way to feel given what you've been through", is the brains natural 'reasonable way to feel' as a reaction given some environment it is in.

So this is just measuring that reaction.

Maybe think of it more as analyzing why things are, and not as fixing an error. Like science does. Measure it.

Re: Impact of early life adversity on reward processing in young adults (2014)

#20

Post by airstrike »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #19
vintermann wrote: post #13

[flagged]

"a reasonable way to feel given what you've been through" Isn't our brain made of chemicals of all kinds, and how we 'feel' is based on many chemical interactions, and so the "a reasonable way to feel given what you've been through", is the brains natural 'reasonable way to feel' as a reaction given some environment it is in. So this is just measuring that reaction. Maybe think of it more as analyzing why things are,…

That's a fallacy, unless you believe the brain is not greater than the sum of its parts.
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