system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How exactly does a stimulant, like adderall or concerta, calm down a person with ADHD?
gpt
The neuropharmacology is a little complicated, but the analogy is a bell curve. If you imagine that a given person might function optimally with a neurotransmitter level of X in a certain region of the brain that is responsible for attention, then someone with less than X has inattention. A stimulant increases that number to X, so that people with ADHD essentially reach a "normal" level of neurotransmitter responsible for attention. Those who previously had normal levels (i.e. X) already won't benefit from ADHD medications to the extent that those who have ADHD do.