Posted by Schess81 on October 4, 2005, at 22:18:34
In reply to Re: Amphetamines and depression, posted by med_empowered on October 4, 2005, at 4:17:49
Thanks for your assurance Med E., youre probrably right about it all. Still, I keep telling myself I have no damage, but it always nags on me; since I took adderall, I haven't gotten a complete remission of my depresson- and like I said, I feel like I have this anhedonia and lack or reward I didn't have before. I have spent a bit of time wondering and researching: if I did kill any neurons that didn't grow back, where are they, and what symptoms would result?
Well, this is long but I hope somebody is willing to read it, lol.
In the first journal abstract SLS quotes in that ecstasy thread, it states that "amphetamine and methamphetamine undoubtedly cause irreversible brain damage with long-term use" well, I have to admit, this does NOT sound good to me.
According to another of those journal abstracts:" Results showed that a sensitizing regimen of amphetamine caused a persistent increase in the number of GFAP-positive cells in the dorsal and ventral caudate-putamen." it goes on to say that this "..may be due to mild neurotoxicity"
The last journal abstract states that "Long-term or high dose administration of d-amphetamine (AMPH) in the rat has been shown to result in dopamine terminal neurotoxicity in the striatum of rats. This phenomenon includes depletion of dopamine content, decreased activity of tyrosine hydroxylase and diminish in the number of dopamine reuptake transporter."Anyway, the place where this damage occurs is in the striatum, and more specifically the "dorsal and ventral caudate-putamen." well, this spot I think is part of the mesotelencephalic dopamine system- including the pathway of axons that extend from neurons in the substantia nigra to the nucleus accumbens-a well known, key brain center associated with rewad (of course, significant degeneration of the dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra is the cause of parkinsons disease) However, it seems to me that if part of the nigrostriatal or mesolimbic dopamine pathways were compromised somewhere in the striatum, (where amphetamines apparently cause neurotoxicity) perhaps symptoms of anhedonia, low motivation, would result that wouldn't respond well to serotonin AD drugs.
I know that these sympoms are also synonomous with depression, and depression isn't the result of brain damage but a mood disorder in which the brain is essentially stuck in "sad mode". *But* considering that I took amphetamine and felt great and super motivated-I was pretty much high on speed, but I had no idea back then that that was what was happening, hey, I just knew I felt *really* good! And now knowing the fact that amphetamine can be neurotoxic, I can't help but wonder that there may be a connection between that and why I now feel no reward for the things I do. Yeah, I'm aware probrably hundreds of thousands of kids have taken amphetamines for ADHD, with no apparent damage. still, just because low dose amphetamines usually dont cause problems, I cant help but think its *possible*. I wish I could get a hi-res MRI or something that could conclusively prove whether amphetamines caused any harm to my brains reward pathways. (would that be feasable?) Maybe then I would stop obsessing about it all. I feel adding a different dopaminergic drug should help me out, if my theory is correct. Anyway, I'm sure there are a lot of knowledable people out there that can tell me if I'm making any sense with all this or if I am I just making too many crazy assumptions...
poster:Schess81
thread:562559
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051003/msgs/563034.html