EF and cognitive control Flashcards
According to Miller & Cohen (2001), cognitive control is…
the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals
According to Miller & Cohen (2001), cognitive control stems from…
The active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represent goals and the means to achieve them.
___ detects the need for greater levels of control.
___ implements top-down
control over performance
Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC); Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
When we encounter increasing task difficulty, we ___
focus our attention on task- relevant stimuli and ignore irrelevant stimuli
To implement cognitive control in the Stroop task:
the dorsal ACC ___
The DLPFC ‘cognitive control’ system ___
detects the response conflict present in an incongruent word;
resolves this conflict through biasing attention to colour processing, rather than word reading
Egner and Hirsch (2005) performed an fMRI study where they ___
presented participants with congruent and incongruent face-name stimuli
By using face stimuli as either target or distracter stimuli in a Stroop-like task, Egner and Hirsch (2005)
could test whether better cognitive control performance was associated with:
- amplified processing of the faces (when they were a target)
- Suppressed processing of faces (when they were a distracter)
- Or both
Egner and Hirsch (2005): the plot of BOLD activity in the FFA region shows that___
This indicates that ___
- When faces are the target, higher cognitive control performance was associated with increased activity in the FFA when compared to low control trials.
- When faces are the distracter, control performance is not associated with the level of FFA activity;
Rather than suppression of faces, the data suggests the amplification of task-relevant stimuli.
Psychophysiologic interaction analysis
(PPI) represents a measure of ___
Context-dependent connectivity, explaining regionally specific responses in one brain area in terms of the interaction between input from another brain region and a cognitive (or sensory) process .
Egner and Hirsch (2005), using PPI, found that only the functional coupling between DLPFC and FFA
increased under ___, indicating that ____
high control in the face target condition, but not face distracter condition;
the DLPFC is communicating the need for FFA activity only when the face is the relevant target.
Tasks such as the Go/No-go and Stop Signal task require participants to ___
withhold a prepotent, or automatic,
motor response
Performance on the Go/No-go and Stop Signal tasks has ___ reliability and validity, including a high correlation with real-world dysexecutive problems
good;
high
Go/No-go and Stop Signal tasks are ideal for fMRI, and other methods (i.e., EEG, TMS), because ___
specific events of interest (e.g., successful (Stop trials) or failed inhibition (Error trials) can be isolated in time from ongoing task-related activity.
fMRI research has consistently shown that
successful response inhibition requires a
network of ___ regions.
right inferior frontal, right parietal and dorsal ACC
Lesion studies have found that the volume of lesion damage to the ___, but not other regions, correlated with the stop-signal response time (SSRT) measure from the stop-signal task
(Aron et al. 2003).
SSRT reflects ___.
right inferior frontal gyrus;
the time it takes to internally suppress a prepotent
response, faster times = better control
TMS allows you to ___. Most of the research using TMS is limited to a couple of centimetres in from ___.
temporarily deactivate specific cortical locations.;
the cortical surface
Transcortical stimulation studies (TMS) of repetitive TMS over the ___ have shown that temporary deactivation of this location ___ inhibitory control
right inferior frontal cortex;
impaired
Measured using the stop-signal task (Chambers et al. 2006):
TMS of the middle frontal or angular gyrus did not ___.
TMS of the right inferior frontal cortex and middle frontal and angular gyri did not ___
significantly alter performance;
significantly affect the speed or accuracy of go trial responses.
Speed of responding is important in response inhibition studies because ___
the faster you respond, the harder it is to inhibit
The overlap of the __ across PPI, fMRI and TMS studies demonstrates the neuroanatomical importance of the __ to inhibitory control.
The combination of methods allows
discrimination of the network of regions important to response inhibition, which can then be ____
right inferior frontal gyrus regions;
right inferior frontal gyrus;
tested with causation using either TMS or a lesion study
The limitation of the lesion approach is always ___
the ability to specify discrete neuroanatomical regions
Loss of control is ___
relative, not absolute
Cognition is fundamental for the ability to inhibit the ___, and for the ___ — both key factors in drug dependence (Kalivas and Volkow,
2005).
immediate pursuit of pleasurable stimuli;
development of adaptive patterns of behaviour
Chronic methamphetamine use has been associated with a significant magnitude of impairment across domains, much greater than cocaine and marijuana, and more akin to ___
Alzheimer’s disease
Methamphetamine use: Use behaviour (frequency, duration, quantity) does not predict ___
the level of cognitive impairment
For those chronic MA users who enter treatment, cognitive function worsens in the ___stages of abstinence
early
Dependent MA users show
significantly poorer performance on self- control tasks (such as the GNG, SST).
The cognitive deficits are associated with significantly lower activity in both the ___regions.
prefrontal and anterior cingulate
The presence of brain and behaviour
differences in problem gamblers raises the question as to what extent
dysfunction is caused by, or causes ___
drug use
___ dysfunction is present in drug-
naive children with a family history of drug dependence
Prefrontal
Poor cognitive control performance in
drug-naive children has a predictive
longitudinal relationship to risk for
developing ___
subsequent drug addiction
IMAGEN project: ___ children tested every __ years from the age of __. __ sites across Europe.
2000;
2;
10;
7
Whelan et al.’s (2014) IMAGEN project found they could correctly identify 73% of the binge drinkers at age 16 using a
model of parameters from age 14 (prior to binge drinking) that included ___
prefrontal activity during inhibitory control (both successful and failed)
ADHD is characterised by ___
inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity
When testing children for ADHD, you’d focus on neuropsychological deficits involving ___
higher order executive control functions, including response inhibition and motor timing
In children with ADHD, \_\_\_ may account for a wide range of symptoms: Motor clumsiness Reactive responses in cognitive tasks Problems with delaying responses Poor protection of interference Disruptive social behaviour Emotional dyscontrol
inappropriate temporal and inhibitory control of motor output
___ deficits are associated with
prefrontal dysfunction in drug-naive children with ADHD
Response inhibition
Chamberlain et al. 2006 gave people the stop-signal and reward learning tasks while under the influence of either atomoxetine (noradrenergic) or
citalopram (serotonergic).
SST performance was improved by __, but not ___, modulation.
The __ pattern was found for reward learning performance.
noradrenergic;
serotonergic;
opposite
Drugs that affect the ___ have the capacity to modulate our cognitive control.
catecholamine system in the brain (noradrenaline and dopamine)
Clinical studies have consistently demonstrated that atomoxetine and methylphenidate (Ritalin) to children
diagnosed with ADHD, results in ___
significant improvements to performance on attention tasks
Aron et al. 2003, demonstrated that ___ performance significantly improved in children with ADHD taking Ritalin.
Chamberlain (2009) subsequently showed that these improvements were associated with ___
stop-signal; significant increases in
right inferior frontal gyrus activity during Stop trials
Li et al. 2010, demonstrated that stop-signal performance significantly improved in adult dependent cocaine users taking ___.
These improvements were associated with significant increases in ___ during Stop trials
Ritalin;
ventromedial prefrontal activity
ADHD and Drug addiction are characterised by low tonic levels of dopamine.
Other conditions that have both low tonic levels of dopamine and poor inhibitory control include ___
Parkinson’s disease, Schizophrenia, OCD, frontotemporal dementia, Tourette’s, Huntington’s
No clear evidence that dopamine replacement therapy in PD results in significant improvements in cognitive control.
A subset of PD patients (figures vary, most estimate 15-20%) who begin DRT will develop ___
impulsive-compulsive behaviours (ICBs): Uncharacteristic and often destructive behavioural changes that are expressed in impulsive (e.g., buying a car with retirement savings) and compulsive ways (e.g., gambling, sexual behaviour)
__ availability of D2 receptors in the human midbrain has been linked to
vulnerability to addiction
Low
___ d2 receptor levels has shown to be a protective factor in siblings of
drug dependent individuals
High
An inverted U-shape curve has been hypothesised by Volkow, suggesting that ___.
In people with low levels of d2 receptors, the large drug-induced increases in DA result in optimal stimulation.
•In people with high levels of d2 receptors the large increase ___.
there is an optimal level of Dopamine stimulation for the drug to be perceived
as ‘pleasant’;
pushes them to far and into the unpleasant range of the curve
Possession of the __ gene has been found to predict, longitudinally,
risk for developing drug dependence.
The odds ratio (effect size), suggests that people who possess the gene are
___ times more likely to develop a drug dependence in their lifetime.
Taq1A;
2 to 5
Possession of the Taq1a gene has been associated with poor response to
treatment for drug addiction, with ___
significantly higher rates of relapse
Dopamine D2 receptor levels and metabolism are ___ in methamphetamine users (Volkow et al.
2001)
significantly depleted
In MA users, the level of dopamine metabolism depletion is a predictor of relapse risk and the development of __
Parkinsonian symptoms
Dopamine and games: Dopamine release is sensitive to d__
difficulty. (As the game gets harder, rewards become more intermittent)
Dopamine and games: Dopamine release is sensitive to p___
probability. (Games of luck are unpredictable, reward schedules are
unpredictable.
Strategy of variable ratio schedule of reinforcement is used in poker machines — never know when you are going to win, but you win just often enough to entice you to keep playing.
Partly because of the illusion of control/skill)
Dopamine release varies with s___
satiation. (Hedonic adaptation is the effect that satiation has on dopamine release to intermittent rewards)
Interval schedules for reward are argued to positively influence habit learning because ___
we can form associations between context and response, without having to have a representation of the goal or outcome of the action.
We can respond to a stimulus repeatedly, resulting in repetition and automatisation of our response, with occasional and unpredictable rewards ensuring that the behaviour doesn’t extinguish.
We might continue to repeat a response, just in case this time is a longer than usual interval.
Examples: Checking behaviour (E-mail, social media)
Contingency management is when the patient
receives tangible, positive reinforcers for objective evidence of behaviour change.
___ cortices appears critical to inhibitory control.
Prefrontal and anterior cingulate
Dysfunction in __ regions is found in different types of addiction, which is associated with behaviours that appear to perpetuate the
disorder, including ___.
prefrontal and anterior cingulate;
Impulsiveness for reward and attentional bias to drug-related cues
Neurochemical, neurostimulation and other techniques have been used
to improve __ via modulation of the critical regions
control
Reward sensitivity can influence both ___
learning and control
Tonic dopamine levels, and response to dopamine-inducing stimuli,
appear critical to sensitivity to ___
Having low dopamine levels is also associated with ___
environmental rewards;
poorer cognitive control performance
Addiction appears to include the combination of ___
All of which are influenced by ___
high drive to seek reward
low ability to control reward impulses
reduced capacity to learn from the negative consequences;
dopamine
