A drug prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D) has other benefits, scientists have announced in a new study published by Nature Neuroscience.

Literally millions of children around the world are prescribed methylphenidate hydrochloride – which is marketed as Ritalin – as a means of helping them manage A.D.H.D, but a direct association between it and rate of learning has now been scientifically established.

Ritalin: Learning Rate

Trials have been carried out using animals and, as a result, Ritalin has been showcased as a dual-effective drug that can boost attention rates, but also increase the rate at which things can be learned. It does this by enhancing the productivity of dopamine – a multifunctional brain-based neurotransmitter.

Neurotransmitters essentially pass information between neurons and alternative cell types. In their new research, the scientists involved in the Ritalin trials found that one form of dopamine helped the participating animals, rats, to focus, while another helped with the learning acquisition process.

Ritalin: ADHD Drug

According to one of the head scientists involved in testing Ritalin, the discovery could lead to a new class of ADHD drug treatments. “Since we now know that Ritalin improves behavior through two specific types of neurotransmitter receptors, the finding could help in the development of better targeted drugs, with fewer side effects, to increase focus and learning”, Antonello Bonci of the University of California, San Francisco, explained.

He and his colleagues demonstrated that Ritalin is effective in the amygdala – a group of neurons that play an important role in terms of learning.

"We found that a dopamine receptor, known as the D2 receptor, controls the ability to stay focused on a task - the well-known benefit of Ritalin”, study co-author Patricia Janak added. “But we also discovered that another dopamine receptor, D1, underlies learning efficiency.”

Learning Trials

The animal learning trials carried out by the scientific team saw them assessing how rats learned that they would be rewarded when exposed to external stimuli, like sound. The behaviour of rats prescribed doses of Ritalin was compared and contrasted to that of rats not on it, and it were the prescribed cases that proved to be superior learners.

As a result of the tests, the scientists were able to establish that Ritalin was capable of augmenting both focus and learning