Abstract
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.
Highlights
Because attention is vital to success in all aspects of life (Meck and Benson, 2002; Erickson et al, 2015), it is important to identify biomarkers of later problems with attention early enough to intervene
We find evidence that MAOA is associated with different developmental patterns from infancy to childhood
We find evidence that the effect of this gene on attention can vary as a function of sex
Summary
Because attention is vital to success in all aspects of life (Meck and Benson, 2002; Erickson et al, 2015), it is important to identify biomarkers of later problems with attention early enough to intervene. Making an early identification and intervening are consistent pursuits among those researching developments (Moss et al, 1982; Webb and Jones, 2009; Camarata, 2014; DuPaul and Stoner, 2014). Genes are a logical choice for early biomarkers because they control the availability of neurotransmitters. Based on observing associations between specific genes and early visual attention, some researchers have called for studies on the developmental course of genotypic differences from infant attention (Holmboe et al, 2010)
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