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Procrastination?


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#31 aLurker

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Posted 30 June 2010 - 01:43 PM

chrono:
I knew I should've gotten you pellets instead! Yeah I also hope they make more and better studies on the related subjects.

jackdaniels:
haha great video with a good explanation of the subject. "Procrastination is avoiding the inevitable" - I wonder how many on this site who procrastinate enjoying life to the fullest to avoid death...

Animal:
My thoughts exactly. Someone mentioned Modafinil here before too, might be an option for some people. Deprenyl and Bupropion are my preliminary first respectively second choice when it comes to trying medication. Deprenyl has the edge in theory right now since it has CAE activity, is way cheaper and might have longevity benefits which makes long-term use more likely to be ok. People seem to have vastly different reactions to it though.

#32 kenj

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Posted 30 June 2010 - 06:22 PM

I certainly believe there is purely psychological component to procrastination, but like others here I also believe that appropriate medication can be a fantastic way to begin the process of sustained behavioural modification. If you suffer from anhedonia, all you want to do are the most dopaminergically rewarding activities, whatever they may be for a particular individual, although typically they're not productive. It's similar to ADD, including the lack of dopaminergic tone, although it's not necessarily the prefrontal cortex that is affected.

Personally I find that Modafinil has excellent effects on my motivation, which would correlate with the dopamine centric theory. Corroborating is that I find Deprenyl and Buproprion also stimulate my motivation to carry out the less stimulating activities in my schedule.


Interesting, do you find dopaminergics most motivating for carrying out daily tasks? For me, they're generally great at having me (hyper)focus on "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" (i.e. basic human pleasures). FWIW, ff I jack up dopamine high enough I could care less about laundry, or even paying the bills.......
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#33 Animal

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Posted 30 June 2010 - 08:13 PM

I certainly believe there is purely psychological component to procrastination, but like others here I also believe that appropriate medication can be a fantastic way to begin the process of sustained behavioural modification. If you suffer from anhedonia, all you want to do are the most dopaminergically rewarding activities, whatever they may be for a particular individual, although typically they're not productive. It's similar to ADD, including the lack of dopaminergic tone, although it's not necessarily the prefrontal cortex that is affected.

Personally I find that Modafinil has excellent effects on my motivation, which would correlate with the dopamine centric theory. Corroborating is that I find Deprenyl and Buproprion also stimulate my motivation to carry out the less stimulating activities in my schedule.


Interesting, do you find dopaminergics most motivating for carrying out daily tasks? For me, they're generally great at having me (hyper)focus on "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" (i.e. basic human pleasures). FWIW, ff I jack up dopamine high enough I could care less about laundry, or even paying the bills.......


Well I appear to have extremely low dopamine without medication, primarily I believe due to a potent somatic drug I took a course of some years ago that is known to cause depression as a side effect. I do not develop any type of obsessive behaviour focusing on pleasure seeking activities when taking the above substances. Not only that, but while I believe dopamine is centric, Noradrenaline is also vital to maintain goal oriented behaviour. Modafinil and Buproprion both have potent Noradrenergic effects.

#34 chrono

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Posted 13 October 2010 - 07:49 PM

Here's a copy of a post I made at M&M long, long ago, with a few studies about the relationship between DA and motivation:

Dopamine and Motivation

A few papers (rat studies) examining the role of D1/D2 in making decisions based on effort, delayed reward, and risk.

19331447 (comment in 19331471): D1/D2 antagonism caused rats to choose lesser rewards requiring less effort. Amphetamine administration blunted this effect, and biased them toward greater effort/reward ("bidirectional modulation of choice behavior"). D3 agonists/antagonists had no effect.

17142306: Evidence that D1 receptors in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) encode whether or not an action is worth performing due to expected benefit/cost. Intra-ACC D1 antagonism reduced the tendency to expend effort for greater reward, while ACC D2 antagonism had no effect on this.

18668030: Activation of D1/D2 biased rats toward risking painful response for greater reward; antagonism blocked this, and producd risk aversion. D3 operated inversely.

15864561: D2 antagonism reduced tolerance for greater effort and delay to attain rewards, while inhibition of serotonin biosynthesis reduced acceptance of only delay.

17805307 echoes these results with dopamine generally, and notes effort and delay are modulated by NMDA as well (but with less direct receptor/behavior correlation). A result worth noting is that high doses of amphetamine caused rats to discount greater effort when seeking reward, while low doses allowed them to discount delay.

And one regarding food preference:
16549074: Selective D1 agonism enhanced the preference for high palatability (high-fat/sugar) food, while selective D2/D3 agonism eliminated this preference.



Here's one more, regarding additional impact of NE:

Prefrontal norepinephrine determines attribution of "high" motivational salience.
Ventura R, Latagliata EC, Morrone C, La Mela I, Puglisi-Allegra S.
Santa Lucia Foundation, European Centre for Brain Research (CERC)

Intense motivational salience attribution is considered to have a major role in the development of different psychopathologies. Numerous brain areas are involved in "normal" motivational salience attribution processes; however, it is not clear whether common or different neural mechanisms also underlie intense motivational salience attribution. To elucidate this a brain area and a neural system had to be envisaged that were involved only in motivational salience attribution to highly salient stimuli. Using intracerebral microdialysis, we found that natural stimuli induced an increase in norepinephrine release in the medial prefrontal cortex of mice proportional to their salience, and that selective prefrontal norepinephrine depletion abolished the increase of norepinephrine release in the medial prefrontal cortex induced by exposure to appetitive (palatable food) or aversive (light) stimuli independently of salience. However, selective norepinephrine depletion in the medial prefrontal cortex impaired the place conditioning induced exclusively by highly salient stimuli, thus indicating that prefrontal noradrenergic transmission determines approach or avoidance responses to both reward- and aversion-related natural stimuli only when the salience of the unconditioned natural stimulus is high enough to induce sustained norepinephrine outflow. This affirms that prefrontal noradrenergic transmission determines motivational salience attribution selectively when intense motivational salience is processed, as in conditions that characterize psychopathological outcomes.

PMID: 18725944 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



Most of the pharmaceuticals that enhance motivation significantly seem to do so through nonselective mechanisms. One of my long-term goals is to find something (maybe a D-something agonist) that will increase motivation without some of the side effects and concerns associated with adderall.

Edited by chrono, 13 October 2010 - 07:50 PM.

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#35 medievil

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Posted 13 October 2010 - 07:55 PM

Dexedrine does jack shit for my motivation, it just keeps me inside more because music sounds better.

Amisulpiride was awesome for my motivation, AMT works great too (but its a RC and not a apropiate chemical for most people) modafinil was useless for my motivation too.

#36 aLurker

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Posted 13 October 2010 - 07:58 PM

Most of the pharmaceuticals that enhance motivation significantly seem to do so through nonselective mechanisms. One of my long-term goals is to find something (maybe a D-something agonist) that will increase motivation without some of the side effects and concerns associated with adderall.


What candidates do you have in mind?

#37 unregistered_user

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Posted 15 September 2011 - 02:11 AM

aLurker, did you find any success treating your procrastination with deprenyl?

#38 JChief

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Posted 15 September 2011 - 03:58 AM

I hear that people have showed benefit using modafinil, pycnogenol but I've never tried. I have found success using ~800mg of sulbutiamine taken with food in the AM. It certainly has benefit for me though I do not take it every day. The increase in testosterone from tongkat ali extract also boosts motivation so I take it during the off days from that.

Edit: I should also add that Bupropion and amphetamines sure worked several years back but had side effects of course and I am against taking them as a result. Bupropion specifically affected by ability to exercise without feeling like I was going to pass out and die :O

Edited by JChief, 15 September 2011 - 04:00 AM.


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#39 Ampa-omega

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Posted 16 September 2011 - 05:04 PM

thanks guys for reviving this topic, because of that, i was able to look up some articles on procrastination.

i'm currently doing a write up on 'how to beat procrastination'

i will share if it is finished,

interesting quote : "procrastination is not knowing how or when to finish something, and in order to find that information we may not get started because the physical capability and energy to do such is not available"

so it seems that procrastination stems from much more fundamental problems, we need motivation, punishment, incentives, but we also need the capability to start the basic work and find answers for the fundamental questions, without the bodily capability our minds put aside the work for later, hence comes forth procrastination.

Edited by Ampa-omega, 16 September 2011 - 05:05 PM.





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