Tuesday 22nd July 2008

Abstract

Various functions of attention are mediated by separate brain networks.One of these, the executive attention network, is important for self-regulation.We have traced the origin of this network to infancy and its development in childhood.Although common to all, its efficiency differs among individuals, partly due to genetic variation.We discuss several alleles of dopamine and serotonin genes that are related to network function.One of these variations appears to behave differently in children depending upon the quality of parenting.The implications of this finding for the development and evolution of the human brain will be discussed.