Stimulants Avoid Adderall if your brain is important to you

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

It's been proven over and over that regular amphetamines are way less toxic vs methamphetamine. Honestly I think it has more to do with how often it's abused and how high one is dosing....

True, the people I know or knew who took extremely high daily doses of either Amphetamine, or had daily use of methamphetamine had problems.

 

[MedicinalUser247]

For me I never really cared for Amphetamines anyway, but I like Coke and Ritalin. I could go for those, but Amphetamines no.

 

[Neuroprotection]

I know this thread is old, started on the same year that I joined this site but I just want to share my opinions on this fascinating subject as they have changed a lot over time.
Firstly, like the OP, I used to believe amphetamines were a one-way ticket to permanent brain damage and the inability to feel pleasure even at low doses. then I discovered, as others have mentioned here, people have been using stimulants for years with little to no consequences apart from withdrawals which disappear over time. of course, this doesn’t take away from the fact amphetamines can be neurotoxic especially when used long-term at high doses. dopaminergic neurotoxicity is thought to play a role in long-term dopamine depletion as the nerve terminals that release dopamine can become dysfunctional and takes a long time to recover. however, other factors that contribute to long-term amphetamine tolerance and possibly depressive symptoms may include dopamine receptor down regulation and changes in glutamate receptor expression, which aren’t linked to neurotoxicity/Neuron damage.
So what does this mean for amphetamine related mental disorders?
Well, along with the above, we also need to consider the effect of The amphetamine induced dopamine flood on other brain circuits and neurotransmitters. this is because dopamine actually works by modulating The release of chemicals like glutamate and GABA as well as the expression and conductance properties of their postsynaptic receptors. I won’t give specific examples as this post will become an essay, Though I will happily reply with examples if requested. nevertheless, it is these effects, combined with its influence over almost all brain circuits that make dopamine Central to mental functioning. When it’s levels fluctuate unpredictably and wildly from unnaturally low to super high, it’s no surprise that cognitive functions, mental agility and natural reward function can suffer.
How may amphetamine neurotoxicity contribute to psychosis?
No one is really sure, but it probably depends. for brief, short term psychotic episodes, neurotoxicity is probably irrelevant and instead over stimulation of D2 receptors is likely temporarily messing with cortical networks. this should resolve after a bit of sleep and stopping amphetamine use. on the other hand, long-term psychosis that lasts for months and doesn’t resolve after amphetamine use it’s probably due to neurotoxicity but not where you may think. rather than dopaminergic neurotoxicity, it is more likely that damage has occurred to A group of cells called the Parvalbumin containing GABA interneurons. they are found in many brain regions and their job is to stabilise and fine-tune neural networks to make sure they are processing both internal and external information properly. if damaged, brain networks become too excitable and likely screw up external information from the environment whilst also generating internal nonsense as well. psychotomimetic NMDA antagonists are also thought to temporarily switch off these interneurons.

On second thoughts, this post could become huge so I might continue my ideas as part of a blog post.

 

[foodcrisis]

How may amphetamine neurotoxicity contribute to psychosis?

i have had schizophrenia off and on my whole life and i used adderall at high doses to stay up for like three days at a time a bunch of times in my late teens and early twenties before my what i call "full time schizophrenia" really kicked in. i was surprised with the amount of adderall that i could take with out hearing voices. psychedelics on the other hand used to get me to hear things a lot before developing schizophrenic voices all the time... from what i understand this is different for everyone though. i think some people fear meth and stuff so they will get auditory hallucinations and maybe become dellusional for a while, but they can still trip on psychedelics with out encountering that because they are known to be safer. not sure if it's true, but i feel like that's a good guess for why people hallucinate from meth, it's scary because of danger.

this question and thread made me think about psychosis amongst children when they are prescribed adderall and ritalin. i wonder if it's a thing.... and i just googled "
Can Adderall cause psychosis in children?


Studies of Adderall and similar stimulants, such as methylphenidate (Ritalin), estimate that psychosis occurs in about 0.10 percent of users. However, new research with over 300,000 adolescents with ADHD showed that the rates of psychosis in adolescents in the amphetamine group was as high as 0.21 percent."

doesn't seem to be very high percent at all. i'd think kids would have more active imaginations than that. i guess not.

 

[ninjapirateroberts]

i have had schizophrenia off and on my whole life and i used adderall at high doses to stay up for like three days at a time a bunch of times in my late teens and early twenties before my what i call "full time schizophrenia" really kicked in. i was surprised with the amount of adderall that i could take with out hearing voices. psychedelics on the other hand used to get me to hear things a lot before developing schizophrenic voices all the time... from what i understand this is different for everyone though. i think some people fear meth and stuff so they will get auditory hallucinations and maybe become dellusional for a while, but they can still trip on psychedelics with out encountering that because they are known to be safer. not sure if it's true, but i feel like that's a good guess for why people hallucinate from meth, it's scary because of danger.

this question and thread made me think about psychosis amongst children when they are prescribed adderall and ritalin. i wonder if it's a thing.... and i just googled "
Can Adderall cause psychosis in children?


Studies of Adderall and similar stimulants, such as methylphenidate (Ritalin), estimate that psychosis occurs in about 0.10 percent of users. However, new research with over 300,000 adolescents with ADHD showed that the rates of psychosis in adolescents in the amphetamine group was as high as 0.21 percent."

doesn't seem to be very high percent at all. i'd think kids would have more active imaginations than that. i guess not.

If you don’t abuse amphetamines, it’s very rare that you get psychosis, especially in a therapeutic context like ADHD. You can take any drug safety. I had self-medicated with low-dose crystal methamphetamine in the past for my ADHD and I never abused it; never had the ‘urge’/need to abuse it. Never used more than 22mg/day, never took it sleep deprived, or unhealthy/dehydrated. You don’t wanna have psychosis? don’t abuse drugs. Some people are just predisposed to substance abuse, so they should just “say no”.

 

[Neuroprotection]

i have had schizophrenia off and on my whole life and i used adderall at high doses to stay up for like three days at a time a bunch of times in my late teens and early twenties before my what i call "full time schizophrenia" really kicked in. i was surprised with the amount of adderall that i could take with out hearing voices. psychedelics on the other hand used to get me to hear things a lot before developing schizophrenic voices all the time... from what i understand this is different for everyone though. i think some people fear meth and stuff so they will get auditory hallucinations and maybe become dellusional for a while, but they can still trip on psychedelics with out encountering that because they are known to be safer. not sure if it's true, but i feel like that's a good guess for why people hallucinate from meth, it's scary because of danger.

this question and thread made me think about psychosis amongst children when they are prescribed adderall and ritalin. i wonder if it's a thing.... and i just googled "
Can Adderall cause psychosis in children?


Studies of Adderall and similar stimulants, such as methylphenidate (Ritalin), estimate that psychosis occurs in about 0.10 percent of users. However, new research with over 300,000 adolescents with ADHD showed that the rates of psychosis in adolescents in the amphetamine group was as high as 0.21 percent."

doesn't seem to be very high percent at all. i'd think kids would have more active imaginations than that. i guess not.

Thank you for your feedback. you seem to be a high functioning schizophrenic and your way of thinking is wonderful, deep and you show a lot of empathy as I’ve seen in other posts. now, regarding amphetamines and psychosis, dopamine is the obvious link but as you have highlighted, many people including children use Adderall and you used it yourself without much harm. this is why I am adamant that whilst dopamine might be important to the onset of psychosis, it is only a certain brain region and a very specific signalling pathway downstream of dopamine receptors which lead to the actual onset of psychosis. some scientific studies have touched on this, but they never go any further to investigate it. The one that really did it for me was a small article abstract which tested the effect of the mood stabiliser lithium on the ability of amphetamine to induce/exacerbate psychosis in paranoid schizophrenics. strangely, despite lithium being quite a strong anti-dopaminergic compound and GSK3 inhibitor, it failed to block the induction or worsening of psychotic symptoms in the Study participants. what it did do however, is block the energising/activating and euphoric effects of amphetamine. this is probably why lithium is only used for bipolar disorder and never in schizophrenia.
I just hope mainstream neuroscientists Will start making these connections and begin developing proper treatment.

 

[TheBookBurner]

Just got my bloodwork back. I expected some issues after 10 years of daily meth use, with 15 years of Adderall use preceding that. However, besides Vitamin D deficiency and very low testosterone (but no thyroid issues, which I'm quite confused about) everything was normal. I haven't noticed any cognitive issues, in fact, I just wrote a 56,000-word non-fiction book which I've had proofread and by all accounts it appears to be quite an impressive work of linguica. This doesn't mean I won't get Alzheimer's hardcore one day though.