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Modifying Brain Networks 409socialization and in a number of disorders of children and adults. Executive attentionrepresents a neurodevelopmental process that extends over childhood andadolescence. Data reviewed above suggest that the alteration of this process couldaffect the propensity for the development of a number of disorders.Attention TrainingThe second issue to which this volume is addressed is the question of possibleinterventions that might influence the neurodevelopmental processes related topathology. The impact of genetic and temperamental factors on the functioningof the executive attention system could lead to the conclusion that the system isnot subject to the influence of experience. However, several training-orientedprograms have been successful in improving attention in patients suffering fromdifferent pathologies. For example, the use of attention process training (APT)has led to specific improvements in executive attention in patients with specificbrain injury (Sohlberg, McLaughlin, Pavese, Heidrich, & Posner, 2000) as wellas in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Kerns, Esso,& Thompson, 1999). With normal adults, training with video games produce betterperformance on a range of visual attention tasks (Green & Bavelier, 2003).To examine the role of experience on the development of the executive attentionnetwork, we have developed a number of training exercises. Our intention was totest the effect of training during the period of major development of executive attention,which takes place between 4 to 7 years of age according to our data (see table18-2). Therefore, we designed a number of computer tasks appropriate for youngchildren, hoping to observe in trained children an improvement in conflict resolution,as measured by the ANT, that would generalize to other aspects of cognition.The exercises were divided in different categories depending on the aspect ofattention being trained. A list of the categories and exercises included in the trainingprogram is shown in table 18-4. The first category (Tracking) consisted of a set ofexercises in which the child was trained to focus attention by controlling themovement of an on-screen cartoon cat using a joystick. The Anticipation exerciseswere directed to teach the child to predict where an object would move, givenits initial trajectory, by tracking two objects simultaneously on the screen (see figure18-2). Stimulus Discrimination exercises required the child to pay close attentionto specific features of cartoon portraits of animals for a matching-to-sample taskand then emphasized the use of working memory to retain information about thosefeatures. Finally, Conflict Resolution and Inhibitory Control exercises consistedof versions of the number Stroop and Go–No-Go tasks, requiring the resolutionof conflict and inhibition of response respectively (see figure 18-3). Our tasks weregraded in difficulty, leading the children toward experience in aspects more closelyrelated to executive attention.