[tgv]

Just a nitpick: don't say dopamine production when you mean reward. Dopamine may be involved in some feelings of reward, but it's certainly not the only factor, and it also doesn't simply signal "pleasure" or "achievement" to the rest of your brain. IIRC, it's not at all certain that a sense of achievement can be compared to the typical scenarios in which dopamine is mentioned: eating, drugs.

[eyelidlessness]

When I saw this comment this morning I was a little surprised, and I second guessed my own familiarity with my own brain. So I did what I do when challenged on the facts and did more reading. It’s not ambiguous. ADHD is directly related to dopamine (reception/production) deficiency. Medicating ADHD improves dopamine uptake (and production depending on the meds), and that chemical regulation relieves ADHD symptoms. It’s a small but perfectly reasonable stretch to infer that behavioral coping strategies that produce reward experiences which also relieve symptoms are likely producing similar chemical outcomes.

[mettamage]

Disclaimer to grandparent: I found your comment a useful read. This is a bit of a nitpick, but one that I thought quite long about.

--- the comment ---

Moreover, you can't actually measure whether it's dopamine, you're simply hypothesizing that it is. And while I'm inclined to believe that dopamine would be involved, you don't strictly know. Saying neuro-terms like "dopamine" may make things sound more real or true, but they aren't more real or more true as you're not measuring your brain.

In that sense neuroscience feels a bit similar to religion (just a bit, from my agnostic perspective). Yes, you use scientific concepts, but since nothing is measured, you as an interested person in neuroscience have no clue what is actually happening in your brain. But it does sound more compelling! Not needing to measure anything while using theories that sound highly convincing to a certain group with certain ideals is how most religion feels like to me (not all though, I can definitely appreciate certain theological discourses of all religions, and I also appreciate religions that don't have a strong emphasis on gods, for example).

So on HN I try to limit my neural babble as much as possible when I talk about my own experiences as my cortisol levels are spiking too much -- ;-) -- when I'm reading neuro-explained anecdotes. I hope that HN'ers see my point or feel that there are convincing counterarguments to this that might make for an interesting discussion.

[jtsiskin]

When people say “dopamine”, I don’t usually interpret as them literally meaning dopamine. I think at this point in common speech it serves as a shortcut for saying “chemically based rewards“.

[eyelidlessness]

No, I definitely meant literal dopamine. Just as people who benefit from many conventional antidepressants are chemically benefiting from increased serotonin (reception/production), people who have ADHD chemically benefit from increased dopamine (reception/production). And while medicating the latter is mostly straightforward (most patients benefit from stimulants which improve dopamine reception, many from improved production as well), particularly adult patients have a variety of coping strategies that relieve symptoms and it’s not a wild leap to infer that when those strategies are successful they’re improving dopamine levels specifically.