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Abstract
Attention influences many aspects of cognitive development. Variations in the catechol-O-methyltransferase
(COMT) gene, known to affect dopamine neurotransmission, have frequently been found
to influence attention in adults and older children. In this paper we examined 2 year
old children and found that variation in the COMT gene influenced attention in a task
involving looking to a sequence of visual stimuli. Because the influence of another
dopamine-related gene (DRD4) has been shown to interact with parenting quality at
this age, we explored parenting in relation to variations in the COMT gene. Variations
in COMT interacted with parenting quality to influence our attention measure. The
Val(108/158)Met polymorphism of COMT is commonly used to determine allelic groups,
but recently haplotypes of several polymorphisms within this gene have been shown
to be more strongly associated with perceived pain. Since attention and pain both
involve the activation of the anterior cingulate gyrus in imaging studies, we compared
the Val(108/158)Met influence with the COMT haplotypes and found the latter to be
more predictive of attention. Our results confirm that important aspects of cognitive
development including attention depend on the interaction of genes and early environment.