The study suggests that a delayed release of the drugs active ingredient, methylphenidate, does not produce the feelings of euphoria associated with abusable drugs.
Study participants taking therapeutic oral doses of Concerta, a once-daily form of the drug methylphenidate, did not report perceiving and enjoying the drug’s subjective effects, features that are associated with a medication’s potential for abuse. The report appears in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
“We know that drugs that cause euphoria are potentially abusable, and euphoria requires rapid delivery to the brain. Using sophisticated PET scan imaging, we were able to examine the rate of delivery of both rapid- and delayed-release formulations of methylphenidate and correlate those results with how the drugs felt to study volunteers,” said Dr Thomas Spencer, of the MGH Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit, and the paper’s lead author.
Methylphenidate and other stimulant drugs used to treat ADHD act by blocking the dopamine transporter, a molecule on brain cells that takes up the neurotransmitter dopamine, raising its level in the brain. Studies have shown that the brains of ADHD patients have abnormal regulation of dopamine, which plays a key role in the control of movement, behavior and attention.