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Psych 382 > Executive Function > Flashcards

Executive Function Flashcards

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1
Q

What are executive functions?

A

The ability to plan actions to reach a goal, guide, or control behaviour towards the goal
— use information flexibly, think abstractly, make references
Must be exerted in situations when there is no existing plan/ template/ experience for how to act
Required when typical responses must be overridden or inhibited
AKA Cognitive control

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2
Q

Cognitive control

A

A term indicating a process in which someone is guiding their own thoughts and actions

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3
Q

How many functions contribute to the performance of executive abilities?

A

More than one, therefore, it’s difficult to link each function to a specific brain region

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4
Q

Executive deficits

A

Most commonly observed after damage to the frontal lobe, including the white matter area connecting frontal regions to other area
— difficulties in executive functioning can occur despite normal functioning in other “intellectual processing areas”

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5
Q

The lateral prefrontal cortex

A
  • Dorsolateral
  • Ventrolateral
  • Orbitofrontal
  • Premotor
    (check slides to practice labelling location)
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6
Q

Goal-directed behaviours

A
  • guiding behaviour towards a goal is multifaceted
  • losing a facet can derail the entire plan
  • completing a task requires a number of skill
  • functions rely on a pattern of activity within overlapping portions of the frontal lobe + the degree it interacts with other brain regions
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7
Q

Skills needed to complete a task

A
  • staying on task
  • sequencing information
  • modifying strategies
  • using knowledge in your plans
  • monitoring actions
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8
Q

Creating and maintaining a goal

A
  • required for executive functioning
  • most basic prerequisite for meeting a goal is staying on task
  • those with frontal lobe damage have issues staying on task
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9
Q

Creating and maintaining a goal: Task sets

A

Task set: process that designated which information is task relevant
Stroop test can test this: a cue 1.5 seconds before the stimulus says what information should be identified
Lateral prefrontal cortex becomes active during the cue period, before the stimulus
—– greater degree of activation causes a less competing colour name causing slowed responses
Prefrontal areas help us stay on task

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10
Q

Sequencing and Planning

A
  • to reach a goal, you need to know what steps need to be taken and what order to take them in
    »> requires knowing what comes before and after, what’s been a accomplished, what needs to be performed
    »> dorsolateral prefrontal regions may be important in sequencing items because they support executive processes that act on information maintained in working memory
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11
Q

Self-Ordered Pointing Task (slides)

A

(6 items are given on a screen, participant must pick any item they haven’t picked before, items change location each time)
- reveals deficits in sequencing
- observed after frontal lobe damage, notably laterally
- regions also active neurologically-intact individuals when they must make a recency judgement

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12
Q

Choosing a Sequencing Strategy

A
  • Another important aspect is the ability to choose which sequence/ strategy allows a goal to be attained
  • Patients with frontal lobe damage are less likely to report they are using strategies
  • One way to assess strategy is the Tower of London Task (move balls to the goal position in as little moves as possible/ in recommended number of moves)
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13
Q

Task-switching

A
  • reaching a goal is not always linear
    — there are often things that require task-switching
  • The neuropsychological test used is the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) (told to sort cards in a certain way, then told to sort in another way)
    —– neurologically intact people adjust their responses accordingly in this test
    —— A variety of brain areas are activated during the WCST: Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobe, temporoparietal association cortex, the basal ganglia
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14
Q

Task-Switching and the Brain

A

A variety of brain areas are activated during the WCST:
- Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, the inferior parietal lobe, temporopariteal association cortex, the basal ganglia
Task switching is likely directed by an executive control system that is independent of the systems that perform each individual task

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15
Q

Frontal lobe damage and task switching

A

patients with left frontal lobe damage have a specific deficit in task-switching
Increasing activity in this area (the left DLPFC) via transcranial direct current can augment task-switching abilities
- inferior frontal junction is also implicated in task-switching

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16
Q

Psychological Intertia

A

Hard to start an action, once engaged, hard to stop
- damage to medial frontal areas, including the supplementary motor area and anterior cingulate
- regions of the medial prefrontal cortex may be involved in determining how much effort will be exerted to reach a goal

17
Q

Inhibition: Go? No-Go Task

A

Person responds by pushing a button when certain stimuli appear and withholding to other stimuli
- difficult when No-Go trials are rare, because Go is expected
- Witholding a response has consistently been found to engage a right-sided network of frontal brain regions

18
Q

Inhibition: Stop-Signal Task

A

The person must respond to a stimulus as quickly as possible
In some trials, quickly after the stimulus is presented another signal occurs quickly that indicates you should stop
- activiates similar right-side networds of brain regions
- Both this and go/no-go involve the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, the SMA (pre-SMA), insula, and parietal regions

19
Q

Self-Monitoring and Evaluations and Brain Damage

A

The ability to evaluate one’s own behaviour is affected by frontal lobe regions
— metacognitive awareness is distrupted by patients with left OR right frontal lesions
— frontal damage impairs the ability to detect errors and modify ongoing behaviours to take a corrective action (especially right)

20
Q

Error-Related Negativity

A

Occurs ~100ms after an error
Amplitude increases under conditions in which response accuracy is emphasized
The larger the error, the larger the ERN
A variety of converging evidence suggests that the ERN component arises from rostral regions of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)

21
Q

Self Monitoring and Evaluation

A

We have a set of brain mechanisms that helps to monitor our performance and detect error
- Theory: the anterior cingulate detects that an error has been made
—– but, even when someone is not aware they made an error, an ERN (Error-Related Negativity) can be detected
—– It could be the ERN is providing an undifferentiated signal that something is amiss

Awareness of an error is indexed by error positivity (Pe)

22
Q

Error Positivity (Pe)

A

Frequently follows ERN by about 200-300 ms
— likely generated by the insula, which is associated with interoception
Increases when there’s awareness of an aerror

23
Q

Introception

A

The ability to sense the physiological condition of the body

24
Q

ERN in people with ADHD and Anxiety

A

Anxious people have an increase ERN
Those with ADHD have decreases in ERN and Pe

25
Q

Higher-Order Thinking

A
  • Conceptual Aspects of thought
    » Being able to think abstractly and conceptually
    » ability to deduce rules or regularity
    » ability to be flexible and respond to new things
    One deficit by those with executive dysfunction is an inability to process things abstractly
26
Q

Nonverbal Analogical Reasoning Problemes

A
  • Use to check executive dysfunction
    Wait for slides
27
Q

Reasoning and the Brain

A
  • Various regions are activated during analogical reasoning
    »> frontopolar, dorsolateral prefrontal regions and anterior insula, parietal cortex
28
Q

Frontopolar cortex and reasoning

A

Distinct areas in the frontopolar cortex activate more for visuospatial analogies compared to for semantic analogies

29
Q

Brain regions for Making rules and inferences

A
  • A number of PFC (prefrontal cortex) regions are required to use rules to guide actions
    — Ventrolateral PFC needed to retrieve knowledge of rukes
    — Dorsolateral PFC with selecting or influecing how rules should be used to guide responding either directly or because it has rules in working memory
    — Cells in the Lateral PFC discriminate between cateogories of items (slides)
    — inference is involved in the prefrontal cortex
30
Q

Cognitive Flexibility

A

People with ED struggle with this, looking at situatings in various ways and producing a variety of behaviour
—- flexibility is needed in new situations and new reactions to old situations
— orbitofrontal cortex aids in flexible behaviour
— Frontopolar Cortex helps reorient task goals towards novel situations or opportunities

31
Q

Judgement and Decision Making

A

Frontopolar cortex: abandoning the current strategy and starting a new one
Medial Orbitofrontal regions: calculate present vs. future rewards
— research uses delay discounting paradigm
— DLPFC (?) engaged when an individual overcomes the temptation to take an immediate reward

32
Q

Working Memory and Executive Function

A

DLPFC may be important in executive function because it supports working memory
— working memory
——– keeps a goal in mind
——– helps understand timing and relationships between items and events
——– needed to create, follow rules, + make inferences and/ or understand the relationships between items and the world

33
Q

Meidal and Lateral PFC

A

Lateral PFC Organization for EF
slides/ figures

Psych 382 (15 decks)

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