A Review on Science of Attention and Developmental Studies in Neuro Science
Objectives: This article comprises the definition of attention and provides some measures for it, then discuss its development, particularly in infancy and early childhood as incredible changes in behaviour which we are all very familiar with, are mirrored by changing neural networks underlying control systems. The article also covers training attentional control, training self-regulation and control in children and adults, and finally the application of this work to mental health.
Methods: The article reviewed the research work done by neuroscientists over the past two decades including Mary Rothbart and Michael I. Posner the brain and behavioural mechanisms that underlie attentional networks and the developing control system of the human infant and child.
Findings: Studies found that all of the white matter tracks surrounding the anterior cingulate were increased in a statistic called fractional anisotropy which is the degree to which water molecules diffuse in a single direction which may traces arguably the efficiency of the white matter pathway.
Novelty: Because of the attention network test, there has been a whole cottage industry of studies running people with different kinds of mental health or normal aging or neurological disorders or mental health disorders like Alzheimer’s and Schizophrenia and so on in trying to find out which attention networks are affected.
Keywords: Science of Attention, Meditation, NeuroScience, Mental Health
