A Common Mechanism for Treating ADHD

Doctor Randy Blakely interprets the high success rate in treating ADHD with drugs as evidence of a common mechanism underlying the disorder that these drugs are attacking

There is certainly a large number of kids with ADHD who respond well to methylphenidate, which is a blocker of the dopamine transporter, or amphetamine, which, as I mentioned, can cause this reverse transport of dopamine. That high success rate leads you to believe that there is a common mechanism underlying ADHD that these drugs are attacking. The question is: what is that mechanism? Now, the two boys that we found this mutation in certainly do not constitute 70 to 80 percent of ADHD kids out there. These are rare mutations; we may never find another child with this particular mutation. But it doesn’t matter, because we have now cracked through into an understanding of a mechanism where amphetamine and methylphenidate actually converge on a common property, with regard to dopamine, and that is in blocking this outward movement of dopamine, when you have a dopamine transporter that’s misbehaving.