Understanding the expression of your brain’s neurochemistry in ADD/ ADHD - San Francisco Urgent Care, Primary Care & Integrative Care

Understanding the expression of your brain’s neurochemistry in ADD.

Posted in: Blog
on June 15, 2011
» Tags: ADD, ADHD, Brain balance, Hyperfocus, inspirational, Neurochemistry, technology
» 1 Comment

It is extremely difficult to help people understand how their brain functions compared to others because we only have the experience of our own brains to relate to since that is all we have ever experienced since birth. One of the things I like to focus on in ADD to help people understand how their neurochemistry is expressed in behavior and experience is to talk to patients about particular experiences they have likely had in life and how they uniquely reacted to them.

The best example is that of a sudden event that causes their brain to go from its normal neurochemical balance to one of a massive surge of adrenalin and a flight of fight response. This would classically be something like a serious car accident, a robbery, or the sudden collapse of a loved one standing next to a person with ADD. In this setting their is a surge of adrenalin neurotransmitters and this affects people with different brain patterns totally differently. If you can think of a car crash with three people in it, one might be crying, one might be stunned and frozen in shock, and the ADD person would be the calmest and most clear headed one in the car. The surge, much like what happens when you take a stimulant medication like Adderall, allows the ADD person to draw in their focus and all the different things they are used to thinking about at all times in their brain suddenly fade away. It is like having 20 people talking in the room and then suddenly just one person.

Many have described situations to me that they felt like everything in the room seemed to slow down and they felt like they hit this calm and clear zone. Many have never really understood why they feel so balanced and calm in these stressful situations, but are drawn to intense and risky careers that tend to recreate these patterns of neurochemistry. Consider a lieutenant in the military under tremendous enemy fire standing over his frightened troops and barking out orders while hardly noticing the the dangers exploding all around them. Another example would be an emergency room doctor calmly directing a code on a 13 year old rushed into the hospital who is not breathing. Of course the most common example we are seeing these days at Care Practice is that of a 23 year old CEO directing a start up team on launch day or pitching his idea to some of the top Venture Capitalists in Silicon Valley and asking for 10 million dollars. To most of us it would seem strange to think that this would be the place where a 23 year olds would thrive, but this is exactly where an ADD person might feel at their best. This is where ADD gets fascinating because how can a group of people who may struggle with organizing their checkbook or washing the dishes thrive and be intensely focused directing teams of people in some of the toughest situations we find ourselves in as humans?

These experiences are also what many describe about the first time they take stimulant medications like Adderall. How can a person take an amphetamine salt and feel like the entire world slows down, the nervousness fades away, and their movement feels as if it is in slow motion? Another person without this neurochemical pattern taking an amphetamine would start acting nervous, pacing, speaking faster, and their heart would start racing. In many ways they might look more like an ADD phenotype when on stimulants. Here you have almost two completely opposite reactions to the same change in neurochemistry. It this paradox that I find so fascinating and illuminating about the human condition. To me this is the best example I know to give us a glimpse of just how differently our brains are from that of our fellow humans. I am not advocating the use of stimulants in this post for all patients with ADD, but focusing on how the reaction to drugs like Adderall gives us a glimpse into just how different each of our brains are expressed phenotypically.

Another thing to note in this example of people functioning under great stress and pressure is that it can also lead to patients not realizing they have the neurochemistry pattern of ADD. They might think I couldn’t possibly have ADD because when I get excited about something I am one of the most intensely focused people I know, or I can write more code in one day than any programmer I know. To understand this, think of a child who is struggling with their school work in several subjects, but then spends dozens of hours on a school science project and gets the highest grade in the entire school. This intense focus or what we call hyperfocus is actually a coping mechanism that people use to help balance out their ADD neurochemistry pattern and a classic example of an expression of ADD. Again we get into another problem with the description and publics awareness of the pattern because even the name describes a condition where people are unable to focus when in fact it is a problem with being unable manage focus and isn’t necessarily an inability to focus in all settings. They can only be focused if they are excited about what they are doing, but if they are bored by it then they will likely struggle in most cases.