The authors present an updated view of neurodynamical approaches to attentional mechanisms and related percetual and consicousness questions with a take on neuropsychiatric illnesses which can shed light on these problems, specifically ADHD and schizophrenia. Furthermore, they provide novel evidence pointing to genetic and neurochemical factors as important elements determining individual diversity in neurodynamical patterns, and susceptibility to mental disease. Thus the authors present a combined neurodynamic, cognitive, neurochemical and genetic perspective that is rarely attempted in reviews on this topic. To do so they focus and develop a number of specific exemplary issues avoiding a too general review perspective so as to provide an in-depth view into the mechanisms involved.

I. Attentional Networks: basic mechanisms and methodological issues.- 1. Neuronal signatures of selective attention: Synchronization and gain modulation as mechanisms for selective sensory information processing.- 2. Intracortical recordings during attentional tasks.- 3. The Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Visual-Spatial Attention.- 4. Attention and neurodynamical correlates of natural vision.- 5. Attending to the Stream of Consciousness: A Methodological Challenge.- 6. Crossmodal Attention: the contribution of event-related potential studies.- 7. Measuring and Modulating Hemispheric Attention.- 8. A connectionist perspective on attentional effects in neurodynamics data.- II. From Attention to Behavioral Control.- 9. From goals to habits: a view from the network.- 10. Dynamics of a neuromodulator: I. The role of dopaminergic signaling in goal-directed behavior.- 1. Dynamics of a neuromodulator: II. Dopaminergic balance and cognition.- III. Clinical and Developmental Issues.- 12. Prefrontal cortex and control of behavior: Evidence from neuropsychological studies.- 13. The Maturation of Cognitive Control and the Adolescent Brain.- 14. Electrophysiological and genetic markers of attentional deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): boundary conditions for normal attentional processing.- 15. The aberrant connectivity hypothesis in schizophrenia.- Subject Index.