When you are dealing with either adderall or dexedrine. You are dealing with amphetamine salts. you are dealing with meds. that can basically over power any other meds affecting your dopamine and norepinephrine. They not only hijack the DAT and NET systems. They basically exert so much control over the cells presynaptic neurons. The VMAT receives the NT's and the proton pump shuttles NT's into the synaptic vesicle. there the neurotransmitters can be stored for future neurotransmission.
That is how it is supposed to work. To clarify one thing, adderall has more of an affinity for NET. While dexedrine prefers to bind to the DAT system. But both are equal opportunity drugs. What happens next, i compare to a driver ant colony that is on the march in the amazon. When they come upon a house, the occupants have already left for the scouts come first. When the colony takes the house every living creature is killed for food. the occupants, who once had a vermin problem no longer have a single living thing to bother with in their home.
When an amphetamine enters the brain, it immediately binds to all of the DAT and NET transporters available. These run in a circle on presynaptic neurons. these travel in a circle path from the outside of the cell into the inside to dump off the DA or NR monoamines. as explained before a proton pump in the battery that runs the VMAT and the NT's into synaptic vesicles for later use.
Once the amphetamine hijacks the DAT. now unlike the other DA binding meds that use a much gentler form of action by allosterically blocking DAT. Amphetamine is a competitive inhibitor of dopamine. It acts directly at the DA substrate binding sites. So, now that it has attached itself to DAT or NET and the NE or DA NT. It is ready to go directly into the cell
By this point the transports have basically been rendered useless in any type of normal functioning and soon. at this point the amphetamine now inside the cell, competitively inhibits DA at the VMAT as well. And the drug is now transported even farther into the cell where the stored DA's are stored in the synaptic vesicles.
This is now the time that a complete malfunction of all the DA and NE cell units fall to pieces. The disruption in the vesicles creates a giant avalanche of events to the point that the cell will have to create a new ion channel for DA release.Two things happen next.And when taken together, it is one of those overwhelming feats in psychopharmacology and demonstrates how powerful these drugs are.
Massive amounts of intercellular dopamine are now available.The high concentration of intercellular DA cause channels to open and release the DA into the synapse.Now the high concentrations of DA in the cell also causes a complete 180 reversible of DAT functioning.So the DAT is now steadily pumping dopamine out of the neuron instead of into it.
The end result is a massive flooding of active DA into the synapse. Now ready to be utilized in the various regions of the brain. The end result is a complete cellular depletion of NE and DA neurotransmitters. These actions are what can make amphetamines so addicting. Tolerance builds at an alarming rate also.
Let me point out that this is a what happens when instant release amp is used at a high dose. That will lead to neurotoxicity. But it also follows the same mode of action on a less smaller scale with substantially less damage to the brain over time.
Also, both meds. come in a xr spanule form. Which is much easier on the cells; as the drug is released at a slow pace and the impact on the cells is at a slow steady pace.
Also check out wikipedias page on Adderall. They did a good job.
Adderall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You can also use pubmed, medline and other sites that concentrate on studies and papers on medications/drugs.