For all that is made of money, sex and power, there's something beyond all of that that seems to drive us. People with lots of money and power who have lots of sex are plenty unhappy too. The latest research into ADHD indicates there's something more to it indeed... in our brains.
Recently scientists at the Brookhaven National Lab gave 53 ADHD people and 44 controls a radioactive tracer that would “light up” dopamine receptors and transporters under a PET scanner.
What they found was the ADHD people had fewer of these cells, meaning our brains are less capable of processing dopamine, the chemical “attaboy,” than other people. It’s all gone into the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dna Blankenhorn at smarterplanet.com says that this is why some people become such crazy achievers -- they need to accomplish more to get the same level of feeling normal. He calls dopamine the 'attaboy' that we need.
It may explain why so many other ADHDers are so ambitious, so driven to succeed at their passions. We need more real attaboys to stimulate our limited dopamine receptors.
Its also why Ritalin and other stimulants work -- but make normal kids / people hyper. It increases dopamine.
I guess its not really about the benjamins. Its all about the dopamine.