Frontal Lobes and Executive Function Flashcards

1
Q

Why are executive functions difficult to study?

A
  • they are not directly observable
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2
Q

What are some examples of executive dysfunction?

A
  • Parkinson’s
  • substance abuse
  • schizophrenia
  • aging
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3
Q

According to the supervisory attentional system, what tasks require deliberate attentional resources?

A
  • involving planning or decision making
  • involved in trouble shooting
  • ill-learned or contain novel sequences of actions
  • tasks that are dangerous or difficult
  • tasks that require overcoming of a strong habitual response or resisting temptation
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4
Q

What are the assumptions of the Supervisory Attentional System?

A
  • actions under deliberate control involve additional mechanism than automatic actions
  • attention modulates selection process with activation or inhibition
  • attention is primarily relevant to the initiation of actions (not execution)
  • selection between competing action sequences takes place through the mechanism of contention scheduling
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5
Q

What is the association in the supervisory attentional system?

A
  • association between the contention scheduling and the basal ganglia/striatum dopaminergic system
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6
Q

What is an example of an overload and then broken contention scheduling?

A
  • Parkinsonism
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7
Q

According to Alan D. Baddeley, what is central executive?

A
  • attentional controller responsible for focus attentional resources, divding and switching attention
  • homunculus-a little man who sits in the head and in some mysterious way makes the important decisions
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8
Q

Who coined the name “executive function” and what does it mean?

A
  • Muriel Deutsch Lezak

- the ability to formulate goals, plan their execution and carry them over effectively

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9
Q

According to Maria Jurado, what is executive function?

A
  • allow us to shift our mind set quickly and adapt to diverse situations while at the same time inhibiting inappropriate behaviours
  • enable us to create a plan, initiate its execution and persevere on the task at hand until its completion
  • mediate the ability to organize our thoughts in a goal directed way and are essential for success in school/work
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10
Q

How can we approach the elusive construct of executive function?

A
  • brain-behaviour relationships (performance on cognitive tasks, neuroimaging)
  • complex stats (latent variable analysis, within-subject designs)
  • typical and atypical everyday life behaviours (rating scales)
  • clinical samples (between-group designs)
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11
Q

What are some observable complex executive behaviours?

A
  • decision-making, problem solving, self-regulation
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12
Q

What are some environmental influences on complex executive function?

A
  • physical activity
  • bilingualism
  • musical education
  • SES/nutrition
  • parent-child interaction
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13
Q

What are some EF components?

A
  • planning
  • problem solving
  • behavioural self-regulation
  • judgement
  • working memory
  • initiation of action
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14
Q

What are some problems with the “unity and diversity of executive function” approach?

A
  • conflation of concepts

- additional problems when the definition of a construct is based solely on description of outcomes

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15
Q

What are the 5 most common terms associated with executive functions?

A
  • planning
  • working memory
  • inhibition
  • set shifting
  • fluency
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16
Q

According to the handbook of intelligence, when does intelligence emerge and when does executive function emerge?

A
  • intelligence emerges when there is complexity

- executive functioning emerges when there is novelty

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17
Q

What are the three functions leading to a complex executive task?

A
  • shifting
  • updating
  • inhibition
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18
Q

What is the unidirectional frontal lobe cortico-subcortical connections?

A
  • caudate and putamen (striatum)
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19
Q

What is the bidirectional frontal lobe cortico-subcortical connections?

A
  • nucleus medial dorsal
  • pars magnocellularis (OPFC)
  • pars parvocellularis (DLPFC)
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20
Q

What are the direct paths of the frontal lobe cortico-subcortical connections?

A
  • hypothalamus

- mesencephalon

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21
Q

What are the indirect paths of the frontal lobe cortico-subcortical connections?

A
  • hippocampus (via cingulate and parahippocampal gyri)
  • amygdala (via uncinate fasiculus)
    slide 32
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22
Q

What are the direct paths of the frontal lobes cortio-cortical connections?

A
  • temporal and parietal lobes
  • visual, auditor and somatosensory modalities via association cortex
  • projections from the olfactory bulb to posterior OFL cortex
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23
Q

What are the indirect paths of the frontal lobe cortico-cortical connections?

A
  • projections from the piriform cortex via the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus
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24
Q

What are the other frontal lobe cortico-cortical connections aside from direct and indirect?

A
  • limbic systems
25
What is the DMPFC responsible for?
- reality testing | - error monitoring
26
What is the DLPFC responsible for?
- top-down guidance of attention and thought
27
What is the rlPFC responsible for? Where does it project to?
- inhibition of inappropriate actions | - striatum and hypothalamus
28
What is the VMPFC responsible for? Where does it project to?
- regulating emotion | - amygdala
29
What are the functional divisions of the prefrontal cortex?
- orbitofrontal - dorsolateral - ventromedial - frontolimbic
30
What brodmann's areas are a part of the orbitofrontal PFC?
- 10, 11, 13
31
What is the orbitofrontal PFC responsible for?
- inhibitory control over behaviour | - suppress or defer immediate gratifications
32
What Brodmann's areas are a part of the dorsolateral PFC?
- 46 and 9
33
What is the dorsolateral PFC responsible for?
- working memory - planning - problem solving - monitoring behaviour
34
What Brodmann's areas are a part of the ventromedial PFC?
- 12, 32, 12/47
35
What is the ventromedial PFC responsible for?
- gives meaning to emotions - maintenance of goals - motivation - attentional control
36
What Brodmann's areas are a part of the frontolimbic PFC?
- 24 and 25 | - ACC
37
What is the frontolimbic PFC responsible for?
- interpretation of emotions - integration emotion-behaviour - emotional control
38
What does PFC rich intra and inter-connectivity allow?
- access to all kinds of information - ability to synthesize information - direct connections to secondary and tertiary areas - connections mediated by thalamus (indirect) - feedback loops - allows extraction of commonalities between situations (goals and rules)
39
What are three important underlying tenets of PFC?
- high level of plasticity - adaptability (cognitive flexibility) and robustness (avoidance of distractors) - recruitment in novel, top-down processing
40
What do the underlying tenets of PFC allow it to have the capacity for?
- capacity to sustain activity in the face of interference (interaction between inhibition and updating WM) - capacity to actively maintain information allows associative learning
41
What are Milner's main observations?
- frontal eye field in initial saccade suppression and correction - cell activation before eye movement - activation of FL in atypical associations between stimuli and response - role of FL in utilization of external cues in behavioural guidance - role of FL in spatial and nonspatial learning tasks (memory) - FL association to temporal organization of behaviour
42
What is PFC main function (top-down control)?
- bias competitive inputs in the benefit of the generation of patterns of goal-oriented behaviour under novel conditions
43
What are the important features of PFC top-down control?
- "active memory in the service of control" - protects fragile representations from interference of external or internal distractions - promotes task-relevant operations - inhibits inappropriate actions
44
What is the stroop test/effect?
- you ignore what the word says and instead state its colour | - inhibit word, enhance colour
45
In the stroop test what do the different functional areas do?
- posterior DLPFC: bias to task-relevant processes - posterior dorsal ACC: select the information that should guide responding - mid-DLPFC: bias to task-relevant representations - anterior dorsal ACC: evaluate the response
46
How are WM representations in the PFC organized?
- organized by process (updating, order, manipulating) rather than material type (verbal, object, spatial)
47
What type of working memory engaged more frontal lobe?
- updating and ordering engaged more FL | - dual tasking and manipulating of information engaged less FL
48
What can be seen by prefrontal cortex development?
- that bigger does not equal smarter - neanderthals had larger frontal lobes because they were engaging with the environment a lot (but not as complex and connected)
49
What are the three essential processes of prefrontal cortex development?
- myelinization - gray matter changes - synaptogenesis
50
What has been found about prefrontal cortex development through postmortem studies?
- ages 2-7: neuronal density decrease in PFC layer III - age 3.5: highest value of synaptic density - dendritic length growth and expansion of denstritic trees also observed
51
What has been found about prefrontal cortex development through in vivo imaging studies?
- FL maturation: back to front direction - left PFC matures earlier than right PFC - FL gray matter increase during a short window: pre-adolescence (males peak at 12 and females at 11)
52
How does the prefrontal cortex develop?
- shared networks at early stages in development and subsequent fractionation
53
What is the role of inhibition in EF development?
- increased inhibition as a sign of enhanced voluntary attention - language serves a maintenance function for self-regulation through social interaction
54
What are some important gains during EF development?
- from perseverative behaviour to cognitive flexibility | - from reactive to proactive control (AX-CPT)
55
What is perseverative behaviour?
- making an error in a task and getting feedback but continuing to make the same error
56
What is continuing performance task (CPT)?
- task : when you see an X then click but only if proceeded by A - children will see A and click even if X is not after
57
What are the steps in the problem solving approach (an EF developmental model)?
- problem representation - planning - execution (intending/rule use) - evaluation (error detection/correction)
58
What can we see from the "colour game"?
- 3 year olds able to play colour game but once switched to shape game cannot change tasks