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Early selective attention skills are a crucial building block for cognitive development, as attention orienting serves as a primary means by which infants interact with and learn from the environment. Although several studies have examined infants' attention orienting using the spatial cueing task, relatively few studies have examined neurodevelopm...
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... of the samples (99%) were successfully genotyped for the CHRNA4 SNP; all 88 samples were successfully genotyped for the COMT Val 158 Met SNP; and 82 samples (93%) were successfully genotyped for the DAT1 VNTR. The number of infants with each genotype is presented in Table 1. These allele distributions were consistent with expected frequencies derived from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium-CHRNA4: 2 (2) 0.19, p .911; ...Similar publications
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... Infants as young as 3 month-old can complete reflexive attention tasks that are similar to tasks completed by older children and adults, such as the spatial cueing task used by Markant et al. (2014). Johnson Frontiers in Psychology 10 frontiersin.org ...
Cognitive psychology began over three-quarters of a century ago and we have learned a great deal in that time, including concerning the development of cognitive abilities such as perception, attention, and memory, all of which develop across infancy and childhood. Attention is one aspect of cognition that is vital to success in a variety of life activities and, arguably, the foundation of memory, learning, problem solving, decision making, and other cognitive activities. The cognitive abilities of later childhood and adulthood generally appear to depend on the reflexes, abilities, and skills of infancy. Research in developmental cognitive science can help us understand adult cognition and know when to intervene when cognitive function is at risk. This area of research can be challenging because, even in typical development, the course of cognitive development for a particular child does not always improve monotonically. In addition, the typical trajectory of this development has been understood differently from different historical perspectives. Neither the history of thought that has led to our current understanding of attention (including its various types) nor the importance of developmental aspects of attention are frequently covered in training early career researchers, especially those whose primary area of research in not attention. My goal is to provide a review that will be useful especially to those new to research in the subfield of attention. Sustained attention in adults and children has been well-studied, but a review of the history of thought on the development of reflexive attention with a focus on infancy is overdue. Therefore, I draw primarily on historical and modern literature and clarify confusing terminology as it has been used over time. I conclude with examples of how cognitive development research can contribute to scientific and applied progress.
... Alerting refers to the maintenance of readiness to respond to stimuli, and executive attention refers to the cognitive control of attention. Genetic and pharmacological studies in humans and animals have suggested that the alerting system modulates attention orienting via brain areas innervated by NAergic connections projecting from the midbrain [21,22], whereas the executive attention system influences attention orienting via DAergic actions likely in the prefrontal cortex [23,24]. NA-and DA-modulating medications, however, have shown inconsistent effects on attention orienting between humans and non-human primates [22,25]. ...
Atypical attention orienting has been found to be impaired in many neuropsychological disorders, but the underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. Attention can be oriented exogenously (i.e., driven by salient stimuli) or endogenously (i.e., driven by one’s goals or intentions). Genetic mouse models are useful tools to investigate the neurobiology of cognition, but a well-established assessment of attention orienting in mice is missing. This study aimed to adapt the Posner task, a widely used attention orienting task in humans, for use in mice using touchscreen technology and to test the effects of two attention-modulating drugs, methylphenidate (MPH) and atomoxetine (ATX), on the performance of mice during this task. In accordance with human performance, mice responded more quickly and more accurately to validly cued targets compared to invalidly cued targets, thus supporting mice as a valid animal model to study the neural mechanisms of attention orienting. This is the first evidence that mice can be trained to voluntarily maintain their nose-poke on a touchscreen and to complete attention orienting tasks using exogenous peripheral cues and endogenous symbolic cues. The results also showed no significant effects of MPH and ATX on attention orienting, although MPH improved overall response times in mice during the exogenous orienting task. In summary, the current study provides a critical translational task for assessing attention orienting in mice and to investigate the effects of attention-modulating drugs on attention orienting.
... It is consistent with the role of of involve the association of several brain networks and structures temporal processing [26]. Results from past studies have demonstrated that complex processes involve cognitive aspects and motor control in central structures and peripheral structures with modulations in dopamine levels [27,28]. ...
... At present, it is believed that the motor coordination in addition to involving structures considered as macro-structures, the micro-environments adjustment is also needed, such as, specific cerebral areas, network connections, time and appropriate concentration of neurotransmitters in synaptic clefts [28], and a supposed efficiency in these multiple micro communications [97]. The implementation of the motor action also involves feedback mechanisms (or feedback), either during the implementation when there is time to do so, or in preparation a priori, in cases of ballistic movements. ...
Dopaminergic system plays a key role in perception, which is an important executive function of the brain. Modulation in dopaminergic system forms an important biochemical underpinning of neural mechanisms of time perception in a very wide range, from milliseconds to seconds to longer daily rhythms. Distinct types of temporal experience are poorly understood, and the relationship between processing of different intervals by the brain has received little attention. A comprehensive understanding of interval timing functions should be sought within a wider context of temporal processing, involving genetic aspects, pharmacological models, cognitive aspects, motor control and the neurological diseases with impaired dopaminergic system. Particularly, an unexplored question is whether the role of dopamine in interval timing can be integrated the role of dopamine in non-interval timing temporal components. In this review, we explore a wider perspective of dopaminergic system, involving genetic polymorphisms, pharmacological models, executive functions and neurological diseases on the time perception. We conclude that the dopaminergic system has great participation in impact on time perception and neurobiological basis of the executive functions and neurological diseases.
... Still, genetic association work with 6-to 7-month-old infants (Markant, Cicchetti, Hetzel, & Thomas, 2014;Sheese et al., 2009) has not been able to establish a direct link between the CHRNA4 polymorphism and attention. That is, a study with 7-month-old infants showed no relation between rs1044396 genotype and behavioral measures of orienting (Markant et al., 2014), and a study using parent reports of orienting in 6-to 7-month-olds yielded similar null findings . ...
... Still, genetic association work with 6-to 7-month-old infants (Markant, Cicchetti, Hetzel, & Thomas, 2014;Sheese et al., 2009) has not been able to establish a direct link between the CHRNA4 polymorphism and attention. That is, a study with 7-month-old infants showed no relation between rs1044396 genotype and behavioral measures of orienting (Markant et al., 2014), and a study using parent reports of orienting in 6-to 7-month-olds yielded similar null findings . These null findings, at early ages, are somewhat surprising, as while it is possible that the effects of CHRNA4 genotype on visual orienting are only observable later in development, the orienting system has been hypothesized to be generally developed by 6 months of age (Colombo, 2001;Johnson & Tucker, 1996) and to exert its greatest attentional effect in early development Rothbart et al., 2011;Sheese et al., 2009). ...
... Moreover, in the community sample, this advantage was specific to executive attention, as the rs4680 genotype did not predict visual orienting behavior. However, Markant et al. (2014) have observed a relation between COMT variation and behavior they consider indicative of orienting attention in infants, perhaps suggesting less differentiated neural substrates than observed in adulthood. ...
Despite claims concerning biological mechanisms sub-serving infant attention, little experimental work examines its underpinnings. This study examines how candidate polymorphisms from the cholinergic (CHRNA4 rs1044396) and dopaminergic (COMT rs4680) systems, respectively indicative of parietal and prefrontal/anterior cingulate involvement, are related to 6-month-olds’ (n = 217) performance during a visual expectation eye-tracking paradigm. As previous studies suggest that both cholinergic and dopaminergic genes may influence susceptibility to the influence of other genetic and environmental factors, we further examined whether these candidate genes interact with one another and/or with early caregiving experience in predicting infants’ visual attention. We detected an interaction between CHRNA4 genotype and observed maternal sensitivity upon infants’ orienting to random stimuli and a CHRNA4-COMT interaction effect upon infants’ orienting to patterned stimuli. Consistent with adult research, we observed a direct effect of COMT genotype on anticipatory looking to patterned stimuli. Findings suggest that CHRNA4 genotype may influence susceptibility to other attention-related factors in infancy. These interactions may account for the inability to establish a link between CHRNA4 and orienting in infant research to date, despite developmental theorizing suggesting otherwise. Moreover, findings suggest that by 6 months, dopamine, and relatedly, the prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate, may be important to infant attention.
... These genes include, but are not limited to, catecholamine-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, cholinergic receptor, nicotinic alpha 4 (CHRNA4) gene, dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene, and dopamine active transporter 1 gene (DAT1). In typically developing infants and children, variability in attentional abilities have also been linked to COMT and DAT1 polymorphisms (Holmboe et al., 2010;Markant, Cicchetti, Hetzel, & Thomas, 2014;Rueda et al., 2005). A more comprehensive array of candidate genes, and assessment of their interactions with each other, would greatly advance our understanding of biological foundations of individual differences in neural mechanisms of selective attention. ...
While a growing body of research has identified experiential factors associated with differences in selective attention, relatively little is known about the contribution of genetic factors to the skill of sustained selective attention, especially in early childhood. Here, we assessed the association between the serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) genotypes and the neural mechanisms of selective attention in young children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a dichotic listening task from 121 children (76 females, aged 40-67 months), who were also genotyped for the short and long allele of 5-HTTLPR. The effect of selective attention was measured as the difference in ERP mean amplitudes elicited by identical probe stimuli embedded in stories when they were attended versus unattended. Compared to children homozygous for the long allele, children who carried at least one copy of the short allele showed larger effects of selective attention on neural processing. These findings link the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR to enhanced neural mechanisms of selective attention and lay the groundwork for future studies of gene-by-environment interactions in the context of key cognitive skills.
... In addition to dopaminergic genes, other genes are plausibly associated with attentional development. For example, APOE, SLC5A7, and CHRNA4 are all associated with the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which has been associated with cognitive development (McKinnon and Nathanson, 1995) and with visuospatial attention, ADHD, and distractibility (Manuck et al., 2000;Manor, 2002;Störmer et al., 2012;Markant et al., 2014). Likewise, BDNF, HTR4, and Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) are associated with serotonin, although MAOA and BDNF also influence dopamine availability (Yu et al., 2005;Razgado-Hernandez et al., 2015;Voigt et al., 2015;Parikh et al., 2016). ...
Attention is vital to success in all aspects of life (Meck and Benson, 2002; Erickson et al., 2015), hence it is important to identify biomarkers of later attentional problems early enough to intervene. Our objective was to determine if any of 11 genes (APOE, BDNF, HTR4, CHRNA4, COMT, DRD4, IGF2, MAOA, SLC5A7, SLC6A3, and SNAP25) predicted the trajectory of attentional development within the same group of children between infancy and childhood. We recruited follow up participants from children who participated as infants in visual attention studies and used a similar task at both time points. Using multilevel modeling, we associated changes in the participant’s position in the distribution of scores in infancy to his/her position in childhood with genetic markers on each of 11 genes. While all 11 genes predicted reaction time (RT) residual scores, only Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) had a significant interaction including time point. We conclude that the MAOA single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1137070 is useful in predicting which girls are likely to develop slower RTs on an attention task between infancy and childhood. This early identification is likely to be helpful in early intervention.
... For example, Bellgrove, Chambers, Johnson, Daibhis, Daly et al. (2007) studied the SLC6A3 (DAT1) gene and found that two VNTRs bias spatial attention in healthy children on a reflexive attention task. Markant, Cicchetti, Hetzel and Thomas (2014) relate COMT to spatial attention in infancy and suggest that variations in dopamine signaling in prefrontal cortex contribute to individual differences in reflexive attention during early development. Finally, Craft, Gourovitch, Dowton, Swanson and Bonforte (1992) found lateralized deficits in reflexive attention in males with early treated phenylketonuria (which is associated with dopamine depletion). ...
This study elucidates genetic influences on reflexive (as opposed to sustained) attention in children (aged 9-16 years; N = 332) who previously participated as infants in visual attention studies using orienting to a moving bar (Dannemiller, 2004). We investigated genetic associations with reflexive attention measures in infancy and childhood in the same group of children. The genetic markers (single nucleotide polymorphisms and variable number tandem repeats on the genes APOE, BDNF, CHRNA4, COMT, DRD4, HTR4, IGF2, MAOA, SLC5A7, SLC6A3, and SNAP25) are related to brain development and/or to the availability of neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, dopamine, or serotonin. This study shows that typically developing children have differences in reflexive attention associated with their genes, as we found in adults (Lundwall, Guo & Dannemiller, 2012). This effort to extend our previous findings to outcomes in infancy and childhood was necessary because genetic influence may differ over the course of development. Although two of the genes that were tested in our adult study (Lundwall et al., 2012) were significant in either our infant study (SLC6A3) or child study (DRD4), the specific markers tested differed. Performance on the infant task was associated with SLC6A3. In addition, several genetic associations with an analogous child task occurred with markers on CHRNA4, COMT, and DRD4. Interestingly, the child version of the task involved an interaction such that which genotype group performed poorer on the child task depended on whether we were examining the higher or lower infant scoring group. These findings are discussed in terms of genetic influences on reflexive attention in infancy and childhood.
... The Met allele has also been associated with greater focused attention at a central fixation and reduced orienting to peripheral distractors (Holmboe et al., 2010). In a spacial cueing task, Val allele carriers showed faster orienting away from the cued location and toward novel locations during long stimulus-onset asynchrony trials, i.e., showed the strongest inhibition of return effects (Markant et al., 2014). Taken together, the above described comparative properties of Val vs Met alleles suggest that in a metacontrast task (see subsequent parts of the article regarding the choice of this task) where longer SOA conditions compared to short SOA conditions are more sensitive to the demands of flexible switching of processing operations COMT Val158Met variability may be related to individual variability in performance. ...
... For statistical analysis we formed separate groups so that Val/Val and Val/Met were grouped together. In the spacial orienting study by Markant et al. (2014), differences in stimulus-onset asynchrony trials were observed when comparing Val allele carriers with Met/Met homozygotes. Given that our study also included stimulus-onset asynchrony manipulation, we chose to use the same comparison. ...
Dopaminergic system of the brain is believed to be strongly involved in normal and pathological behavioral phenotypes of attention. In metacontrast masking studies attentional effects on metacontrast are predominantly expressed when time intervals between a target stimulus and a masking stimulus are longer rather than shorter. Taken together, this predicts that variability in common genes known to be involved in dopaminergic function could interact with target/mask intervals in determining the effects of metacontrast masking. We tested this by genotyping participants of the masking experiment for the COMT Val158Met, DAT1 3'UTR 40bp VNTR, and DRD4 exon 3 48bp VNTR variability. We found that Val homozygotes and subjects with long repeat variants of the DRD4 gene showed relatively higher level of correct target perception with a longer target/mask time interval than with a shorter time interval while DAT1 variability did not have any effects. Implications of this result for the development of psychophysical testing based methods of screening for vulnerability/resilience in relation to the pathology of the dopaminergic systems related attentional dysfunction are considered.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
... 15,16 Further, numerous studies have documented that allelic variation at the DAT1 VNTR influences neurocognitive measures in both ADHD and non-clinical samples. 17,18 GWAS IN ADHD SNP-GWAS In childhood ADHD, four case-control GWAS [19][20][21][22] , two familybased GWAS 23,24 and a quantitative trait loci GWAS 25 have been performed. One ADHD case-control GWAS has been performed in adults, while a further quantitative trait loci GWAS has been performed in a population-based cohort of adolescents and adults. ...
... 15,16 Further, numerous studies have documented that allelic variation at the DAT1 VNTR influences neurocognitive measures in both ADHD and non-clinical samples. 17,18 GWAS IN ADHD SNP-GWAS In childhood ADHD, four case-control GWAS [19][20][21][22] , two familybased GWAS 23,24 and a quantitative trait loci GWAS 25 have been performed. One ADHD case-control GWAS has been performed in adults, while a further quantitative trait loci GWAS has been performed in a population-based cohort of adolescents and adults. ...
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood behavioral condition which affects 2-10% of school age children worldwide. Although the underlying molecular mechanism for the disorder is poorly understood, familial, twin and adoption studies suggest a strong genetic component. Here we provide a state-of-the-art review of the molecular genetics of ADHD incorporating evidence from candidate gene and linkage designs, as well as genome-wide association (GWA) studies of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and rare copy number variations (CNVs). Bioinformatic methods such as functional enrichment analysis and protein-protein network analysis are used to highlight biological processes of likely relevance to the aetiology of ADHD. Candidate gene associations of minor effect size have been replicated across a number of genes including SLC6A3, DRD5, DRD4, SLC6A4, LPHN3, SNAP-25, HTR1B, NOS1 and GIT1. Although case-control SNP-GWAS have had limited success in identifying common genetic variants for ADHD that surpass critical significance thresholds, quantitative trait designs suggest promising associations with Cadherin13 and glucose-fructose oxidoreductase domain 1 genes. Further, CNVs mapped to glutamate receptor genes (GRM1, GRM5, GRM7 and GRM8) have been implicated in the aetiology of the disorder and overlap with bioinformatic predictions based on ADHD GWAS SNP data regarding enriched pathways. Although increases in sample size across multi-center cohorts will likely yield important new results, we advocate that this must occur in parallel with a shift away from categorical case-control approaches that view ADHD as a unitary construct, towards dimensional approaches that incorporate endophenotypes and statistical classification methods.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 20 January 2015; doi:10.1038/mp.2014.183.
