Comment · Tue, April 23, 2013 · Ceretropic
Long-term effects of dopamine-increasing agents
Original post in this thread
vcxzzxcv · 24 points
Say you take stimulant X (X = caffeine, modafinil, etc) regularly for a period of weeks, months, years. The short-term effects involve upregulation of dopamine, increasing wakefulness, concentration, and motivation.
What about long-term effects?
For example, could your dopamine-producing ability while off the drug (after the period of being on it) be lessened? Another question: could the short-term benefits help act as a catalyst for long-term brain plasticity changes? E.g. say you're learning a skill while on one of these stimulants; when going off the stimulant, the skill remains, and supposedly the short-term effects helped you save time in learning it.
Interested to hear your thoughts, apologies in advance if this has been asked and answered to death.
What they were answering
randombozo · 4 points
Just FYI - modafinil doesn't act on dopamine receptors, at least not strongly.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
It does have DA and NE affinities, but they are much lower than traditional dopaminergic stimulants.