The fall semester is here and students have returned from summer vacations ready to delve their rejuvenated minds into the depths of studies. However, the monolith of exams can be an exigent endeavor and can overwhelm the mind into a stressful conundrum causing students to run towards impetuous temptations, such as Adderall.
Adderall is a psychostimulant used in a treatment program for ADHD and narcoleptic patients according to PubMed Health. This drug is a combination of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine substances.
Adderall and other psychostimulants have been associated with college students who use them as an impetuous solution to increase their concentration while studying for exams. Inappropriately consuming these addictive prescription drugs for any exam comes with a costly life-changing price: hardwiring the neurons to become overactive.
“Addiction is a brain disease,” said Brenda McKee del Moral, an assistant professor at Edgewood College. “[It is] not a moral problem or lack of will power, but is a disease with chemical and protein changes, which can be researched and treated.”
Del Moral spoke about the neuroscience of addiction at Wednesday Nite @ the Lab, a science outreach presentation series, and immersed the audience into the molecular and physiological mechanisms of addiction to psychostimulants.
Furthermore, “chronic brain disease persists during abstinence [from psychostimulants] and the effects are accumulative over time,” said del Moral who researched neuronal changes of learning and behavior changes during addiction for her post-doctorate at the Waisman Center and UW-Madison Department of Psychiatry.
This persistence in the brain can be conditioned even at an early age. The person is more vulnerable to the addictive chemical and protein changes caused by psychostimulants at an early age. Even as a college student, your brain is still not fully developed and is still at a high risk of being hardwired more easily towards addiction than a 35 year-old.
Learning occurs when multiple electrical signals from many neurons converge onto one neuron. “One of my favorite views of thinking about learning is the honing of this convergence,” said del Moral.
However, when the brain becomes addicted to substances, such as Adderall, this natural system of learning becomes “hijacked.” Consequently, the neurons become overactive and constantly release dopamine, a common neurotransmitter, onto the next neuron without being dispersed from the synaptic cleft, a functional junction between the neurons.
“When the natural reward circuit becomes activated and reinforced so strongly,” said del Moral. “It becomes dominant and those synaptic circuits’ existence strengthens more than other areas [in the system]. In this way, [addiction] hijacks the brain.”
Thus this overstimulated neuronal activity becomes wired solely for the purpose of finding more of the addicting substance.
These long-lasting protein changes not only affect the individual, but they could have these protein changes inherited by their offspring. This type of inheritance is called epigenetics, and could result in silencing or enhancing the transcription of significant genes in the offspring.
For instance, since the psychostimulants affect multiple cellular systems in the body, the gamete cells are susceptible to epigenetic, or heritable, change to the organizational proteins, or histones, binding DNA within the gamete cell. Del Moral said experiments done to demonstrate this epigenetic effect, implies that if abstinence is not maintained, then detrimental effects can be passed onto the offspring even if the offspring do not take any psychostimulants.
Therefore, del Moral suggests not to use any psychostimulants, such as Adderall, to “study more...and longer.”
“Because of the physical tolerance [of Adderall],” said del Moral. “Those students need to have the same level of Adderall in their body each time they approach learning in order to have any benefit.”
Instead, del Moral suggests the healthiest way to enhance your learning is to use repetition with the material, study in 20 to 45 minutes intervals, and maintain healthy sleeping habits.
“I tell my students: Brain development is not complete until males are 25 years old, females 24 years old,” said del Moral. “So remember this when you are making your decisions for the day.”
You can watch her entire presentation at http://www.biotech.wisc.edu/webcams/Index.aspx and click on the drop down menu “Recorded lectures-Sort by Date.” Look for “8/15/12 Brenda Mckee.”
If you would like more information about Adderall and addiction, del Moral invites you to contact her at bdelMoral@edgewood.edu.
