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PubMed2006

Behavioural problems in 2-year-olds: links with individual differences in theory of mind, executive function and harsh parenting.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive and family factors are implicated in the origins of behavioural problems, but little is known about their independence or interplay. METHODS: We present data from 127 two-year-olds from predominantly disadvantaged families who completed tests of 'theory of mind' (ToM), executive function (EF) and verbal ability. Researchers' home-visit ratings and detailed video-based coding of mother-child interactions were combined to give an aggregate measure of harsh parenting, while behavioural problems were indexed by a multi-informant, multi-setting, multi-measure aggregate. RESULTS: Harsh parenting and deficits in ToM and verbal ability each predicted unique variance in behavioural problems; independent effects of EF were only marginally significant. Harsh parenting and ToM interacted significantly in their effects on behavioural problems. CONCLUSIONS: Child and family influences on behavioural problems should be considered in tandem, as they show significant interplay; in particular, advanced ToM skills appear to buffer young children against effects of harsh parenting.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed2001

Impaired perception of vocal emotions in Parkinson's disease: influence of speech time processing and executive functioning.

Little is known about the underlying dimensions of impaired recognition of emotional prosody that is frequently observed in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Because patients with PD also suffer from working memory deficits and impaired time perception, the present study examined the contribution of (a) working memory (frontal executive functioning) and (b) processing of the acoustic parameter speech rate to the perception of emotional prosody in PD. Two acoustic parameters known to be important for emotional classifications (speech duration and pitch variability) were systematically varied in prosodic utterances. Twenty patients with PD and 16 healthy controls (matched for age, sex, and IQ) participated in the study. The findings imply that (1) working memory dysfunctions and perception of emotional prosody are not independent in PD, (2) PD and healthy control subjects perceived vocal emotions categorically along two acoustic manipulation continua, and (3) patients with PD show impairments in processing of speech rate information.

Affect↗

PubMed1997

Executive function of the hippocampus in social behavior in the rat.

Bilateral lesion of the fimbria resulted in a reduction of social interdependency and agonistic behavior in male-male encounters in rats. These findings are hypothesized to be consistent with J. A. Gray's (1982) supervisor model, which assigns an executive function to the septohippocampal system. To achieve this interpretation, social behavior is described in terms of relational processes (social hypothesis, behavioral sequencing, and behavioral competition). This study focused mainly on the effects of the lesion on behavioral sequencing by studying the alterations of the predictability of the behavior of a rat in terms of the behavior of its partner.

Agonistic Behavior↗

PubMed2003

Executive function assessed by memory updating and random generation in schizotypal individuals.

Individuals scoring high (N=32) and low (N=27) on the unusual experiences (UnEx) scale of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE) were selected from a large sample (N=265) of normal volunteer undergraduates. The high- and low-UnEx groups were compared on two tasks, random generation and memory updating, which target executive functions that inhibit prepotent responses and update current information. The groups differed only on the R measure of random generation that assesses inequality in the relative frequencies of response alternatives, a result attributed to superstitious behaviour rather than to executive deficit. The results suggest that the executive impairments previously observed in high schizotypal individuals using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and other measures are selective rather than global.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Can specific deficits in executive functioning explain the behavioral characteristics of CHARGE syndrome: a case study.

I present the case of a 12-year-old girl diagnosed with CHARGE syndrome. As an infant she had shown typical characteristics of CHARGE. Neuroimaging revealed asymmetrical ventriculomegaly. Both her teacher and parents reported academic and psychosocial problems. Neuropsychological assessment revealed significant executive dysfunction, including attention difficulties. We discuss the possible association between executive deficits and school and psychosocial problems. This case also highlights the importance of evaluating executive function in children with CHARGE, which is particularly useful in efficiently identifying needs for direct intervention.

Abnormalities, Multiple↗

PubMed2001

Executive functioning, temporal discounting, and sense of time in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).

Clinic-referred teens (ages 12-19) with ADHD and ODD (N = 101) were compared to community control (CC) teens, equated for age and sex, (N = 39) on a variety of psychological tasks assessing executive functioning (EF), temporal reward discounting, and time estimation and reproduction. A factor analysis reduced the EF measures to three dimensions, representing CPF Inattention, Working Memory, and CPT Inhibition. Results indicated that the ADHD group had significantly more CPT Inattention than the CC group. No differences were found for Working Memory or CPT Inhibition. The ADHD group displayed significantly greater temporal discounting of delayed hypothetical monetary rewards relative to immediate ones and manifested more impaired time reproduction, but not time estimation, than did the CC group. Main effects for level of IQ were found only on the Working Memory factor and largely did not interact with the group factor otherwise. The group differences in CPT Inattention, temporal discounting, and time reproduction were not a function of level of comorbid oppositional defiant disorder, delinquency, or anxiety-depression. Results are reasonably consistent with past research on EF and sense of time in children with ADHD and extend these findings to the adolescent age group. Problems with working memory and CPT inhibition found in prior studies of children with ADHD, however, were not evident here, perhaps owing to age-related improvements or insufficient task difficulty.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cognition.

Adolescence is a time of considerable development at the level of behaviour, cognition and the brain. This article reviews histological and brain imaging studies that have demonstrated specific changes in neural architecture during puberty and adolescence, outlining trajectories of grey and white matter development. The implications of brain development for executive functions and social cognition during puberty and adolescence are discussed. Changes at the level of the brain and cognition may map onto behaviours commonly associated with adolescence. Finally, possible applications for education and social policy are briefly considered.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

How specific are executive functioning deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism?

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study is to identify intact and deficient cognitive processes in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and children with high functioning autism (HFA). METHOD: Three rigorously diagnosed groups of children aged between 6 and 12 years (54 ADHD, 41 HFA, and 41 normal controls) were tested on a wide range of tasks related to five major domains of executive functioning (EF): inhibition, visual working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and verbal fluency. In addition, the role of comorbid oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and comorbid conduct disorder (CD) in ADHD was investigated by directly comparing 20 children with ADHD and 34 children with comorbid ADHD + ODD/CD. RESULTS: ADHD was associated with EF deficits in inhibiting a prepotent response and verbal fluency. Children with HFA demonstrated deficits in all EF domains, except interference control and working memory. The HFA group showed more difficulties than the ADHD group with planning and cognitive flexibility. The comorbid ADHD + ODD/CD group did not show a distinctive pattern of performance on the EF tests compared to the ADHD group. CONCLUSION: The present study indicates that children with HFA exhibit more generalised and profound problems with EF tasks compared to children with ADHD.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

PubMed2004

The Penn Conditional Exclusion Test: a new measure of executive-function with alternate forms of repeat administration.

Studies of change in neuropsychological function over time in both healthy and diseased populations have been hindered by the absence of alternate forms of most commonly used neuropsychological tests. The Penn Conditional Exclusion Test (PCET) was developed as a new cognitive instrument to assess "executive" functioning with four alternate forms. In Study 1, the PCET was administered in counterbalanced order to 80 healthy young adults to establish equivalent test difficulty. Results revealed that the four versions were related on categories achieved, total number of errors and total number of trials. In Study 2, the PCET was administered to 25 healthy adults of a wide age range with a battery of computerized neuropsychological tests to assess construct validity. Convergent validity was confirmed by positive correlations between the PCET and a measure of abstraction. Divergent validity was established through low, nonsignificant correlations between the PCET and measures of facial emotion recognition, word and face memory, visuospatial function, and verbal reasoning.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Neonatal intermittent hypoxia impairs dopamine signaling and executive functioning.

Mesotelencephalic dopamine (DA) pathways are exquisitely vulnerable to ischemic-anoxic insult. These insults are known to produce long-term derangements in DA signaling and have been hypothesized to contribute, at least in part, to pathologic behaviors such as cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Whether modest intermittent hypoxia, such as that encountered with repetitive apneas in premature infants, contributes to clinically significant impairments in DA signaling, and how these impairments manifest at a systems level, is unknown. To address these voids there is a need to develop animal models emulating features of a common disorder of prematurity, namely, apnea with hypoxia. Behavioral traits exhibited by such models include disturbed sleep-wake architecture, excessive locomotion, and impaired working memory persisting 1 to 2 months post-insult. Western-blot analysis of expression patterns of proteins involved in DA signaling (e.g., DA and vesicular monoamine transporters, tyrosine hydroxylase, and D1 receptors) are consistent with that which might be expected from hyper- or hypodopaminergic functioning in DA-responsive prefrontal cortex and striatal circuits, respectively. These novel observations suggest that intermittent hypoxia occurring during a period of critical brain development disrupts development of those mesotelencephalic pathways modulating the expression of sleep and wakefulness, locomotion, and executive functioning.

Brain↗

PubMed2004

Impaired implicit cognition with intact executive function after extensive bilateral prefrontal pathology: a case study.

LR has extensive bilateral pathology to prefrontal cortices after head injury and marked changes to interpersonal and social behavior relative to his premorbid state. WAIS scores revealed intact IQ at superior levels, equivalent to premorbid ability as measured by the NART. LR performed at normal levels on a battery of executive function tasks, as did eight age- and IQ-matched controls. However, he showed impaired implicit learning on a serial reaction time task, and performed differently from controls on a mere exposure effect task. This case supports claims that implicit cognition may underpin some aspects of normal social functioning.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Age, executive function, and social decision making: a dorsolateral prefrontal theory of cognitive aging.

Current neuropsychological models propose that some age-related cognitive changes are due to frontal-lobe deterioration. However, these models have not considered the possible subdivision of the frontal lobes into the dorsolateral and ventromedial regions. This study assessed the age effects on 3 tasks of executive function and working memory, tasks dependent on dorsolateral prefrontal dysfunction; and 3 tasks of emotion and social decision making, tasks dependent on ventromedial prefrontal dysfunction. Age-related differences in performance were found on all tasks dependent on dorsolateral prefrontal dysfunction. In contrast, age-related differences were not found on the majority of the tasks dependent on ventromedial prefrontal dysfunction. The results support a specific dorsolateral prefrontal theory of cognitive changes with age, rather than a global decline in frontal-lobe function.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

P300 and executive function alterations: possible links in a case of Morgagni-Stewart-Morel syndrome.

To evaluate possible cause-effect relationships between hyperostosis frontalis interna and cognitive dysfunction, we performed a neurophysiological (event-related potentials, ERPs) and neuropsychological study in a case of Morgagni-Stewart-Morel (MSM) syndrome associated with frontal lobe compression. Neuropsychological evaluation evidenced selective impairment of executive function. Visual and auditory oddball ERPs revealed delayed P300 latency and reduced auditory P300 amplitude with multi-peaked morphology. ERP abnormalities and cognitive dysfunction could be due to the frontal bone-cortex conflict documented by neuroradiological investigations.

Cognition Disorders↗

PubMed2005

Neural correlates of cognitive control in childhood and adolescence: disentangling the contributions of age and executive function.

Dense-array (128-channel) electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record event-related potentials (ERPs) from 33 participants between 7 and 16 years of age while they performed a Go/Nogo task. The frontal (Nogo) N2 component of the ERP was taken as an index of cognitive control, and examined in relation to both age and independent assessments of executive function (EF), including the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), the Stroop task, a delay discounting task, and backward digit span. Better performance on the IGT and the Stroop task was associated with smaller N2 amplitudes, over and above effects of age. N2 latencies decreased with age but were not predicted by EF. Source modeling of the N2 revealed neural generators in areas suggestive of cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex, and the locations of these generators varied systematically with EF (IGT and Stroop task): the cingulate generator was more anterior for good EF participants at all ages; the orbitofrontal generator was relatively left lateralized for younger and for poorer EF participants. Taken together, these findings suggest that age-related decreases in N2 amplitude, but not N2 latency, reflect the development of cognitive control and cannot be attributed solely to incidental changes that may affect assessments of the N2 (e.g., increases in skull thickness). Functionally relevant decreases in N2 amplitude may reflect changes in the regions of cortex giving rise to the N2.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Processing limitations in children with specific language impairment: the role of executive function.

Research suggests that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have processing limitations; however, the mechanisms involved have not been well defined or investigated in a theory-guided manner. The theory of constructive operators was used as a framework to explore processes underlying limited processing capacity in children with SLI. Mental attentional capacity, mental attentional interruption, and 2 specific executive functions (shifting and updating) were examined in 45 children with SLI and 45 children with normally developing language, aged 7 to 12 years. The results revealed overall group differences in performance on measures of mental attention, interruption, and updating, but not shifting. The findings supported the premise that mental attention predicted language competence, but that this relationship was mediated partially by updating.

Attention↗

PubMed2006

The underlying role of aggressivity in the relation between executive functioning and alcohol consumption.

The research literature on the relation between cognitive functioning and alcohol consumption is inconsistent and difficult to interpret. The purpose of this study was to test a causal model that might help reconcile some of these conflicts. The model specifies that aggressivity is an important intermediary mechanism underlying the relation between executive functioning (EF) and alcohol consumption. Participants were 310 (152 men and 158 women) healthy social drinkers between 21 and 35 years of age tested in a laboratory setting. EF was measured with a battery of neuropsychological tests. Aggressivity and alcohol consumption (as well as cigarette and drug use frequency) were measured with self-report and interview formats. Aggressivity played a mechanistic role in the relation between EF and alcohol/drug use for men but not for women. Women evinced some unexpected positive relations between EF and alcohol use. This study serves as a first step in trying to reconcile previous inconsistent findings regarding the relation between cognitive functioning and alcohol use by demonstrating that a better understanding of this relation involves considering aggressivity as an intermediary variable.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Ascending digits task as a measure of executive function in geriatric depression.

The authors hypothesized that older depressed patients would perform more poorly on the Ascending Digits Task (ADT) when matched against a nondepressed elderly comparison group. In a novel measure, the ADT, 129 older depressives scored more poorly than 129 comparison subjects in bivariate analyses and models controlling for demographic variables. The ADT may be a good measure of executive function in older adults.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed2006

Dual-tasking effects on gait variability: the role of aging, falls, and executive function.

The objectives of the present study were to test the hypothesis that the dual-tasking effect on gait variability is larger in healthy older adults than it is in healthy young adults; that this effect is larger in idiopathic elderly fallers than it is in healthy older adults; and that the dual-tasking effects on gait variability are correlated with executive function (EF). Young adults and older adults who were classified as fallers and nonfallers were studied. Gait speed, swing time, and swing time variability, a marker of fall risk, were measured during usual walking and during three different dual-tasking conditions. EF and memory were evaluated. When performing dual tasks, all three groups significantly decreased their gait speed. Dual tasking did not affect swing time variability in the young adults and in the nonfallers. Conversely, dual tasking markedly increased swing time variability in the fallers. While memory was similar in fallers and nonfallers, EF was different. The faller-specific response to dual tasking was significantly correlated with tests of EF. These findings demonstrate that dual tasking does not affect the gait variability of elderly nonfallers or young adults. In contrast, dual tasking destabilizes the gait of idiopathic elderly fallers, an effect that appears to be mediated in part by a decline in EF.

Accidental Falls↗