Table Of ContentAttention, Genes, and Developmental Disorders
Oxford Series in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Series Editor
Mark H. Johnson, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development,
Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Attention, Genes, and Development
Kim Cornish and John Wilding
Neuroconstructivism, Volume One: How the Brain Constructs Cognition
Denis Mareschal, Mark H. Johnson, Sylvain Sirois, Michael W. Spratling,
Michael S. C. Thomas, and Gert Westermann
Neuroconstructivism, Volume Two: Perspectives and Prospects
Edited by Denis Mareschal, Sylvain Sirois, Gert Westermann, and
Mark H. Johnson
Toward a Unifi ed Theory of Development: Connectionism and
Dynamic Systems Theory Re-Considered
Edited by John P. Spencer, Michael S. C. Thomas, and James L.
McClelland
Attention, Genes, and
Developmental Disorders
KIM CORNISH AND JOHN WILDING
1
2010
1
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offi ces in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Cornish, Kim.
Attention, genes, and developmental disorders / Kim Cornish and John Wilding.
p. ; cm. — (Oxford series in developmental cognitive neuroscience)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-517994-1
1. Developmental disabilities—Genetic aspects. 2. Attention. 3. Attention-defi cit
hyperactivity disorder—Genetic aspects. I. Wilding, John M. II. Title.
III. Series: Oxford series in developmental cognitive neuroscience.
[DNLM: 1. Attention Defi cit Disorder with Hyperactivity—genetics. 2. Adolescent
Development. 3. Attention. 4. Child Development. 5. Developmental
Disabilities—genetics. 6. Genetic Diseases,
Inborn—genetics. WS 350.8.A8 C818a 2010]
RJ506.D47C67 2010
618.92’8588042—dc22
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my husband John and my children Luke and Holly,
For your endless encouragement throughout the writing of this book—it truly
could not have been done without your support and patience.
In memory of Walter Cornish for being such a wonderful and inspiring father
—Kim Cornish
To Nicolas, Davidek, Vincent, and Roberta,
Hoping that your generation will use expanding knowledge wisely.
—John Wilding
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
Interest in attention as a complex cognitive skill has undergone some-
thing of a renaissance in recent years among theoreticians, scientists, and
clinicians alike. Collaboration across seemingly diverse disciplines, most
excitingly between molecular genetics, developmental cognitive neuro-
science, psychiatry, and education, has culminated in a wealth of new
research discoveries that have the potential to elucidate the typical and
atypical development of attention across multiple levels of analysis: the
genetic, the brain, the cognitive, and the behavioral levels. This book
places this new generation of research into a developmental context and
urges the reader to recognize the importance of tracing trajectories of
cognitive function and dysfunction from infancy onward rather than
focusing on the mature end state.
Our collaboration began over a decade ago when we began to
explore disorders of attention in children with known genetic causes.
Using novel experimental paradigms developed by John Wilding, we
found that similar degrees of behavioral symptoms of inattention across
different neurodevelopmental disorders did not necessarily imply equiv-
alent cognitive attention mechanisms, with disorders such as fragile X
syndrome displaying a quite distinct “signature” profi le of functional
impairment compared to that of children with Down syndrome or those
with symptoms of attention defi cit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
viii Preface
Since this initial observation, we have been privileged to be part of an
exponential growth of research advances on several fronts. New methods
are now available for viewing brain activity in real time, information on
the complexities of the biochemistry of neural activity has expanded,
and there is a greater appreciation of the complexity of the effects of
single genes and their downstream targets. Analysis of the component
processes included under the broad umbrella of “attention” has become
increasingly sophisticated, and ingenious methods have been developed
for measuring typical and atypical development of these processes from
infancy into childhood and then into adulthood. With these advances,
however, has also come the realization that neurodevelopmental disor-
ders are extremely complex and dynamic in nature and are therefore
unlikely to have simple causal mechanisms that explain putative gene–
behavior relationships. So our journey will continue.
Our intention in writing this book was not to provide an exhaustive
review of the current literature. Instead, we hope to provide the reader
with a unique journey of exploration across an often overwhelming
array of research studies and contradictory fi ndings, with the ultimate
goal of understanding the gene–brain–cognitive processes that drive
atypical development, in our case, disorders of attention. We conclude
with a push for systematic research that can bridge the gap between
these exciting scientifi c research discoveries and the uptake of these dis-
coveries by clinicians and educators. We strongly believe that research of
this nature must have application in the wider community in order to
enhance the potential of all individuals with neurodevelopmental
disorders.
Even as we wrote each chapter, the ground was shifting beneath us
with the advent of sophisticated imaging methods and more detailed
genetic analysis, but the need for improved theory and experimental
methodology remains pre-eminent. We hope that we have provided a
solid foundation and structure within which new fi ndings can be
evaluated.
Inevitably many others have been involved, and we would like to
thank all our collaborators over this period. We would especially like to
highlight our gratitude to Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith, an inspi-
rational scientist and pioneer in the fi eld of neurodevelopmental disor-
ders whose work has inspired our own efforts to focus on the role of
Preface ix
development in understanding attention dysfunction across differing
genetic disorders.
We are indebted to the many scholars who have read individual
chapters and provided invaluable comments: Dr. Gaia Scerif, Dr. Cary
Kogan, Professor Rosemary Tannock, Dr. David Hessl, Dr. Peter Enticott,
Dr. Darren Hocking. Dr. Debbie Mills, Dr. Lucy Cragg, Julie Hanck,
Anna Tirovolas, Janice Kerfoot, Marina Ter-Stepanian, Britt Dash, and
Jacalyn Guy, to name but a few. We are grateful to McGill University and
the Canada Research Chairs Program that enabled Kim Cornish to take
a sabbatical year to complete this project with John Wilding. The staff at
OUP, in particular the executive editor, Catharine Carlin, and the series
editor Professor Mark Johnson, have provided insightful comments and
much needed encouragement during the writing of this book. And
fi nally, above all, we thank the numerous children and young adults who
have taken part in our many studies: they and their parents are the foun-
dation of experimental research in this fi eld.
