Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, sleep, and appetite, keeping us balanced.
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Norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline) is a neurotransmitter produced by the locus coeruleus in the brainstem. It regulates alertness, attention, arousal, and the stress response, and works alongside dopamine in the prefrontal cortex to support executive function. Your prefrontal cortex needs norepinephrine in an optimal range — too little, and you can't sustain focus, too much, and the brain shifts to reactive, survival-oriented processing. In ADHD, norepinephrine signalling is dysregulated, contributing to difficulties with sustained attention, emotional regulation, and the stress response.
The dopamine system is the network of neurons, pathways, and chemical machinery that produces, delivers, uses, and recycles dopamine throughout the brain. It's one of the most-discussed systems in ADHD, and with good reason — differences in how this system works are closely linked to difficulties with motivation, attention, reward, and the ability to sustain effort on tasks that aren't immediately interesting.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in many different functions, including movement, motivation, reward, and pleasure. It is one of the most important neurotransmitters you have to get to know if you want to understand ADHD better.
Synaptic pruning is the process by which the brain refines its connections during development, removing synapses that are used less frequently while strengthening active ones. In autistic brains, this process works differently — two independent cleanup systems (the neuron's internal recycling programme and the brain's specialised immune cells) are both less aggressive, meaning significantly more connections are retained. This denser wiring contributes to many recognisable autistic experiences: sensory intensity, deep focus, rich pattern recognition, difficulty filtering, and the challenge of switching between tasks or environments.
Related Glossary Terms
norepinephrine
dopamine system
dopamine
synaptic pruning
