For The General Public |
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What is executive function? Executive function is a broad term that encompasses many critical skills and cognitive functions, including those that guide, control, inhibit, and monitor behavior. Often included are aspects of decision-making and risk-evaluation; dealing with novelty and using information from memory in a novel manner; planning and goal-setting along with skills required to achieve those plans and goals; the ability to prioritize and switch between task sets; and the self-evaluation and monitoring of actions. Why are we studying executive function? Aspects of executive function are compromised in a wide variety of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia (e.g., Barch, 2005; Fioravanti, 2005), depression (e.g., Langenecker et al. 2005; Levin et al., in press; Rogers et al. 2004), mania (Frangou et al. 2005; Dixon et al. 2004), obsessive compulsive disorder (e.g., Watkins et al. 2005; Penades et al. 2005), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (e.g., Willcutt et al. 2005; Fisher et al. 2005). The NIMH-supported MATRICS initiative is founded on the realization that deficits in executive function and other aspects of neurocognition are critical to quality of life and functional prognosis, perhaps even more so than traditionally emphasized symptoms such as psychosis. A clear neurocognitive framework would provide mental health scientists a means to examine the common ways in which executive function is compromised across psychiatric populations and the ways executive dysfunction is manifested differentially in specific disorders. Furthermore, the impact should also reach beyond psychiatric disorders, addressing NIH’s mandate more generally, as executive functions are compromised in individuals with neurological disorders, drug or alcohol problems, and certain developmental disabilities as well as during aging. How do we study executive function? Our center is designed to understand executive function at three levels: the computational, the psychological, and the neurobiological and integrate them to provide a unified theoretical perspective. To do so, each of our projects investigates a particular aspect of executive function at all three levels. One of our projects focuses on the representations supporting executive control and its development during childhood while another examines the effect of emotion on executive function. Other projects investigate executive function by means of analyzing molecular genetic analyses in concert with computational modeling to begin to specify in more detail how the dopamine (DA) system regulates three separable but correlated executive subcomponents -- prepotent response inhibition, updating working memory, and set shifting. Another project utilizes a fMRI/ERP approach to test how well a temporal cascade model of cognitive control can explain facets of executive function, such as task switching. Lastly, we have a project that explores how PFC representations are shaped by the interaction between experience and the unique biological mechanisms of the PFC and associated brain areas in the basal ganglia and dopaminergic system. Only by integrating and synthesizing ideas and findings across these different levels of analysis will the field arrive at a fully adequate understanding of executive function. Links: National Institute of Mental Health Boulder County Mental Health Center National Alliance on Mental Illness |
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