Versus
Posted on 03/07/2010 12:05:10 PM PST by decimon
Doctors treat millions of children with Ritalin every year to improve their ability to focus on tasks, but scientists now report that Ritalin also directly enhances the speed of learning.
In animal research, the scientists showed for the first time that Ritalin boosts both of these cognitive abilities by increasing the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine deep inside the brain. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers neurons use to communicate with each other. They release the molecule, which then docks onto receptors of other neurons. The research demonstrated that one type of dopamine receptor aids the ability to focus, and another type improves the learning itself.
The scientists also established that Ritalin produces these effects by enhancing brain plasticity – strengthening communication between neurons where they meet at the synapse. Research in this field has accelerated as scientists have recognized that our brains can continue to form new connections – remain plastic – throughout life.
"Since we now know that Ritalin improves behavior through two specific types of neurotransmitter receptors, the finding could help in the development of better targeted drugs, with fewer side effects, to increase focus and learning," said Antonello Bonci, MD, principal investigator at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center and professor of neurology at UCSF. The Gallo Center is affiliated with the UCSF Department of Neurology.
Bonci is co-senior author of the paper, which will be published online in "Nature Neuroscience" on Sunday, March 7, 2010.
Bonci and his colleagues showed that Ritalin's therapeutic action takes place in a brain region called the amygdala, an almond-shaped cluster of neurons known to be critical for learning and emotional memory.
"We found that a dopamine receptor, known as the D2 receptor, controls the ability to stay focused on a task – the well-known benefit of Ritalin," said Patricia Janak, PhD, co-senior author on the paper. "But we also discovered that another dopamine receptor, D1, underlies learning efficiency."
Janak is a principal investigator at the Gallo Center and a UCSF associate professor of neurology. Lead author of the paper is Kay M. Tye, PhD, a postdoctoral scientist at the Gallo Center when the research was carried out.
The research assessed the ability of rats to learn that they could get a sugar water reward when they received a signal – a flash of light and a sound. The scientists compared the behavior of animals receiving Ritalin with those that did not receive it, and found those receiving Ritalin learned much better.
However, they also found that if they blocked the dopamine D1 receptors with drugs, Ritalin was unable to enhance learning. And if they blocked D2 receptors, Ritalin failed to improve focus. The experiments established the distinct role of each of the dopamine receptors in enabling Ritalin to enhance cognitive performance.
In addition, animals that performed better after Ritalin treatment showed enhanced synaptic plasticity in the amygdala. Enhanced plasticity is essentially increased efficiency of neural transmission. The researchers confirmed this by measuring electrical activity in neurons in the amygdala after Ritalin treatment.
The research confirmed that learning and focus were enhanced when Ritalin was administered to animals in doses comparable to those used therapeutically in children.
"Although Ritalin is so frequently prescribed, it induces many brain changes, making it difficult to identify which of those changes improve learning." said Kay Tye. "By identifying the brain mechanisms underlying Ritalin's behavioral enhancements, we can better understand the action of Ritalin as well as the properties governing brain plasticity."
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Other co-authors on the paper and collaborators in the research were Jackson Cone and Lynne Tye, who were undergraduate assistants at the time of the study, and Evelien Hekkelman, a medical student working with Kay Tye at the Gallo Center.
The UCSF-affiliated Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center is one of the world's preeminent academic centers for the study of the biological basis of alcohol and substance use disorders. Gallo Center discoveries of potential molecular targets for the development of therapeutic medications are extended through preclinical and proof-of-concept clinical studies.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
E. & J. ping.
ML/NJ
Is the /sarc tag necessary here?
Hmmmm. I don’t know what to think about this.
“Why do I find this difficult to believe?”
Probably because you know it is BS.
The drugging of our society is having a long term effect that is becoming more obvious everyday. Just look around at the non-functioning idiots in our society. Our vernacular refers to them as
“democrat voters”.
Cow Patties.
Our son was on this stuff for about 6 months when he was 6. It made no difference in his school work or classroom behavior. We made the decision to home school. That turned him around big time. He's well ahead of his age level now.
So does this mean people will protest the kids in school that get the highest grades if they took ritalin? Kind of like complaining about steroid users in sports.
Yeah, right, great.
This stuff was never approved for children but was dumped on them by the PC crowd trying to make them, especially boys, pliant.
We know three different families whom drugged their boys at an early age and all three, as young men, were turned down by the military because they had taken Ritalin.
Anecdotal I know, but still fact.
Another report trying to defend the indefensible.
Rather than actually parenting and putting forth effort, people want to take the easy way out.
Brain plasticity may not be a good thing. When mammals are young, their brains learn the parameters to reality, which is very important, as our senses pick up vast amounts of data, most of which we ignore, and only a tiny bit is skimmed to form our common mental reality. After a while, these parameters firm up and become permanent.
This means standardized perceptions of size, shape, perspective, color, tone, and what we think of as our ordinary perceptions. Unable to do this, and we are overwhelmed; if we do it incorrectly, at a minimum we have one of the 60 or so varieties of synesthesia, for example, “seeing music as color”.
In the 1970s, the first effective antidepressant was introduced, called “Norpramine” (Desipramine Hydrochloride). We had minimal understanding of neurochemistry at the time, and it was “a shotgun solution to a bb gun problem”.
It also had many severe and common side effects, but because it helped severe depression it became very popular. At its peak of popularity, it was prescribed to over 2 million Americans.
However, after it was approved by the FDA, further testing on it ceased in the US, but was continued in Japan. The Japanese discovered that it increased brain plasticity considerably, softening the parameters of perception, and making it easier for the brain to relearn how to perceive.
To demonstrate how powerful this effect was, the Japanese sewed shut one eyelid of domestic cats, then injected the drug into the optic center of their brains. In just a few weeks, the cats relearned how to see, but with just their open eye. After the stitches were removed, the closed eye still functioned, and still sent signals to the brain, but they were ignored by the cats’ brains.
Compliance is not learning.
I fear it means the schools will push to have every child on Ritalin. Its for their own good ya know (s)
Versus
Soma for the twenty first century. It's a Brave New World.
Some of those parameters of reality being morality, normal behavior in society, and how to interact with other people.
I'm wondering if some of the amorality to the point of psychopathy that we see in some of today's teens are a result of this "plasticity" from Ritalin. How many school shootings and other psychopathic behavior is a result of Ritalin?
Uhm... nothing good can come of this, use of any drug that alters the state of mind is bad as using heroin as an analgesic for children; and would you put this stuff in orange juice or cereal as a vitamin supplement?
But, if one is prone to believe junk science and reason does not solve the problem; would you trust the same people that can not even protect the product/food supply or run a government education system that turns out fuzzy thinking and uneducated children.
How long before some jerk in congress demands to put it in our water, just like another idiot recently demanded to put COQ10 in our drinking water.
It’s difficult for kids to learn in institutions that are full of BS. Kids have good BS detectors. They don’t do well when you set them afloat in a place full of contradictions.
Putting them on speed sure aint the answer.
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