One Brain's journey

A couple of weeks ago, Cogmed, the people I do some work for, released results of study that show that Cogmed Working Memory Training changes the density of dopamine (D1 to be specific) receptors in the brain.

I was quite encouraged by this study, for a number of reasons, for one it would appear that the changes brought about by Cogmed Working Memory Training are probably longer lasting than what might be accomplished by medication. It would also seem to indicate that the process is quite complex and, although this was already more or less established by the researchers at Cogmed, the changes have some permanency.

In an interview on a podcast about the study on the Science site*, Torkel Klingberg, the developer of Cogmed, explained that either too much or too little dopamine is not good. He went on to explain that in many of the subjects the number of dopamine receptors was decreased and in a lesser number there was actually a small increase in the number.

It seems to me that what the training accomplishes is an adjustment in dopamine receptor density, the end result of which is an improvement in working memory. I know from my own reading that dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is made more available by stimulant medication. I take Ritalin to accomplish this. Why Cogmed training would decrease the number of dopamine receptors and end up making things work better is a mystery to me, as it would seem that this would make less dopamine available in the brain.

I do realize though that this thinking is just my response of trying to simplify something that is much more complicated than my self-education allows me to understand.

I will write again as the meaning of this study becomes clearer…

*http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;323/5915/800/DC2

The day I was diagnosed with ADD I left the psychiatrist’s office and sat in my car in the parking lot and cried. In an instant I had the answer to all the accusations from age 12 to that moment of how I was lazy of how I didn’t apply myself of how I didn’t measure up. Now I knew for the first time that it wasn’t my fault. I was infinitely relieved to the point where it brought the tears. Unfortunately the feelings of relief didn’t last and within a month or two I was in the same psychiatrist’s office telling him that I was depressed. What I was now thinking about was of the promise of a good and interesting life that had gone unfulfilled.

I remembered the psychologist who did a complete psycho neurological, psycho-educational assessment after I had failed my second year in university, who told me that I had the intellectual capability to be successful in any course of action I should choice and in any educational program I might choose. I asked what she meant and she replied that I could study medicine, law, architecture, physics…anything. However, she had also picked up indications that there something quite wrong and recommended that I spent some time and effort finding out what that was. I didn’t. I was so relieved to find out that I wasn’t an idiot, not that they would have had the knowledge back then to find out anyway.

On yeah I had gone to night school and slowly, painstakingly acquired a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and then completed the BA at the university from which I had been debarred years before but these were not difficult programs and I still had trouble with them.

I realized, gradually, that most of the major choices in my life had not been made by me but by the disorders, ADD and the social anxiety subsequently diagnosed. I had jobs instead of a career. I had not chosen to stay single, to not raise a family, to not own property. I had not chosen to live most of my life alone. These things had been forced on me either by ADD or by social anxiety. Of course I also realized that there were thousands, maybe millions of people on the planet who would change places with me in an instant but quite frankly it didn’t make it any easier. It wasn’t about the quality of life, the opportunities or even about having a choice. It was about being deprived of the power of choice.

It cost me—mentally, emotionally and eventually financially. I filed for personal bankruptcy and spent too much of my time in regret for things that never were.

It took a few years, but then the medication, I was on both a stimulant and an antidepressant, began to work. I started to follow some of the other suggestions I had received, like taking a martial art and I came to terms with the past and began to look to the future…