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PMID: 12366871 Published · epublish English Clinical Trial Comparative Study Journal Article

Assessing the molecular genetics of attention networks.

BMC neuroscience ·Vol. 3 ·2002-10-04 ·Pages 14

Fossella J, Sommer T, Fan J, Wu Y, Swanson JM, Pfaff DW, Posner MI

Abstract

Current efforts to study the genetic underpinnings of higher brain functions have been lacking appropriate phenotypes to describe cognition. One of the problems is that many cognitive concepts for which there is a single word (e.g. attention) have been shown to be related to several anatomical networks. Recently, we have developed an Attention Network Test (ANT) that provides a separate measure for each of three anatomically defined attention networks. In this study we have measured the efficiency of neural networks related to aspects of attention using the ANT in a population of 200 adult subjects. We then examined genetic polymorphisms in four candidate genes (DRD4, DAT, COMT and MAOA) that have been shown to contribute to the risk of developing various psychiatric disorders where attention is disrupted. We find modest associations of several polymorphisms with the efficiency of executive attention but not with overall performance measures such as reaction time. These results suggest that genetic variation may underlie inter-subject variation in the efficiency of executive attention. This study also shows that genetic influences on executive attention may be specific to certain anatomical networks rather than affecting performance in a global or non-specific manner. Lastly, this study further validates the ANT as an endophenotypic assay suitable for assessing how genes influence certain anatomical networks that may be disrupted in various psychiatric disorders.

MeSH Terms
Adolescent Adult Alleles Attention/physiology Catechol O-Methyltransferase/genetics Cognition/physiology Dopamine/genetics,metabolism Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins Female Gene Frequency Genetic Testing Humans Male Membrane Glycoproteins Membrane Transport Proteins/genetics Middle Aged Monoamine Oxidase/genetics Nerve Net/physiology Nerve Tissue Proteins Neuropsychological Tests/statistics & numerical data Reaction Time/physiology Receptors, Dopamine D2/genetics Receptors, Dopamine D4 Reference Values Sex Factors
Chemicals
DRD4 protein, human Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins Membrane Glycoproteins Membrane Transport Proteins Nerve Tissue Proteins Receptors, Dopamine D2 SLC6A3 protein, human Receptors, Dopamine D4 Monoamine Oxidase Catechol O-Methyltransferase Dopamine
Authors & Affiliations
7 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Fossella John
Sackler Institute of Developmental Psychobiology, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 1300 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA. johnfossella@hotmail.com
Sommer Tobias
Fan Jin
Wu Yanhong
Swanson James M
Pfaff Donald W
Posner Michael I
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Article Info
Journal
BMC neuroscience
Abbr.
BMC Neurosci
ISSN
1471-2202
DOI
10.1186/1471-2202-3-14
Email
johnfossella@hotmail.com
Published
2002-10-04
Epub
2002-00-04
Pages
14
Language
English
Region
England
NLM ID
100966986
PMCID
PMC130047
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1186/1471-2202-3-14 PMC Full Text View journal details
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