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406 EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTIONSfor alerting scores, whereas the orienting network showed no evidence ofheritability.Moreover, several genes that influence the amount of dopamine in limbic andfrontal brain areas have been shown to relate to individual differences in the abilityto resolve conflict (Blasi, Mattay, Bertolino, Elevag, Callicott, et al., 2005;Diamond, Briand, Fosella, & Gehlbach, 2004; Fan et al., 2003b; Fossella et al.,2002). In addition, the alerting and orienting networks have been found to be influencedby genes related to the noradrenergic and cholinergic systems respectively(Fossella et al., 2002; Parasuraman, Greenwood, Kumar, & Fossella, 2005).In the next section of this chapter we deal with development and pathologiesrelated to executive attention. We examine some forms of pathology that havebeen documented as involving deficits in conflict scores from the ANT.Disorders Involving Executive AttentionThe attention network test has been applied to a number of forms of pathology inchildren, adolescents, and adults. In this chapter we deal with several pathologiesthat involve executive attention (see table 18-3), but a fuller account includingdisorders involving other aspects of attention, is provided in a review by Rothbart& Posner (2006).Alzheimer’s DiseaseA recent study by Fernandez-Duque & Black (2006) used the ANT to study patientswith Alzheimer’s disease in comparison to normal elderly and young adults.Table 18-3 shows the conflict scores for patients in comparison with age-matchedadults, indicating a significant deficit in the patients. Non-Alzheimer age-matchedcontrols and younger adults exhibited similar conflict scores, suggesting that thepoor executive attention in patients resulted from the disease and was not the resultof normal aging.Table 18-3 Conflict scores for a number of disorderscompared to controls.disorder patients controlsAlzheimers Disease * 149 96Schizophrenia ** 150 99Borderline Personality *** 140 110All differences between patients and controls are statisticallysignificant.Conflict scores are expressed in ms. Data from: *Fernandez-Duque& Black, 2006; **Wang et al., 2005; ***Posner et al., 2002.