Executive functions

Question 1

What is Autism?

Answer 1

Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental (congenital, born with it) condition characterized by differences in social interaction and communication, and specialized and intense interests

Question 2

Key Features of Autism

Answer 2

• Difficulties in social communication: Difficulty with verbal and nonverbal communication, understanding social cues, and forming relationships.
• Repetitive behavior patterns and interests: Engaging in repetitive actions, movements, or routines, and a preference for consistency in daily activities.
• Unique sensory processing: Over- or under-sensitivity to sensory stimuli (e.g., light, sound, texture), affecting the way individuals experience their environment.

Question 3

Executive Functions (EFs)

Answer 3

umbrella term that includes a range of higher-order cognitive functions, which are responsible for goal-directed behavior

Question 4

EFs are useful for…

Answer 4

• Stay organized
• Make decisions
• Resist distractions
• Solve problems
• Adapt when things change

Question 5

What do EFs predict ?

Answer 5

Executive functions are related to almost all aspects of life :
- Worse executive functions are linked to obesity, overeating, substance abuse, alcoholism.
- Executive functions predict success in life, and in school especially
- Executive functions predict harmony, healthy relationships (more loyalty)
- Poor EF leads to violence, crime, emotional outbursts

Question 6

3 core EFs that together form the foundation for reasoning, problem-solving, planning

Answer 6

1. Inhibitory control
2. Working memory
3. Cognitive flexibility

Question 7

Inhibitory control

Answer 7

• Enables suppression of distracting stimuli in order to reach a goal
• Inhibitory control allows us not to overshare

Question 8

Working memory

Answer 8

• Allows us to retain, update, and manipulate information
• Can work with the information in our mind
• E.g. answering a question

Question 9

Cognitive flexibility

Answer 9

• Allows us to switch between tasks and adjust to changes in context
• Understanding the perspective of another, and sarcasm (switch from literal to figurative meaning)

Question 10

Executive functions are primarily supported by the …

Answer 10

prefrontal cortex (PFC)

Question 11

PFC development

Answer 11

The PFC is one of the last brain regions to fully mature : its development continues for approximately three decades (~25 years)
* The PFC undergoes the most substantial development during childhood and adolescence

Question 12

Stroop color word task

Answer 12

• Congruent condition : color matches word
• Incongruent condition : color does not match word

Question 13

What EF component does the Stroop color word task measure?

Answer 13

Inhibitory control

Question 14

Why are we prone to errors and reaction time delays in the incongruent condition of the Stroop task?

Answer 14

reading or word cognition is automatic (no cognitive effort), while the color recognition is not automatic : need to process color and retrieve the name of the color. The inhibitory control is trying to suppress the automatic response and prioritise the non automatic.

Question 15

Which group of people consistently demonstrates poorer performance on the Stroop task ?

Answer 15

People with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder because attention deficit is directly related to inhibitory control (worse inhibitory control with ADHD)

Question 16

Inhibitory control (Inhibition) allows us to:

Answer 16

• stay focused on a boring or repetitive task instead of giving in to distractions
• resist impulsive purchases and stick to our budget during a shopping trip
• say no to junk food when trying to maintain a healthy diet
• resist all kinds of temptations and regulate our behavior in line with long-term goals (why linked to loyalty in relationships)

Question 17

those with better inhibitory control at ages 3–11 are more likely to:

Answer 17

• Stay in school;
• Avoid drugs and risky behaviors;
• Have better physical and mental health;
• Earn more, follow laws, and report being happier;
  These effects held even after controlling for IQ, gender, social class, and home environment.

Question 18

Without inhibition, we may struggle to resist …

Answer 18

urges or stop ourselves from doing harmful things – even if we know they are wrong (prison population has less inhibitory control)

Question 19

Working Memory allows us to

Answer 19

• hold a question in mind while reading a long paragraph to find the answer (includes phonological loop for auditory and verbal info., visual spatial sketchpad for visual information, etc.)
• do mental math, like calculating a tip in our head
• recall what someone just said in a conversation in order to respond meaningfully
• follow multi-step instructions

Question 20

Measurements of working memory taken at school entry are strong indicators of…

Answer 20

later academic success. They predict achievement in reading, spelling, and mathematics better than IQ scores (Alloway, 2008; Alloway & Alloway, 2010) and short-term memory ability (Engle et al., 1999).

Question 21

Cognitive flexibility allows us to…

Answer 21

• Change our perspective, understanding perspective of others : directly connected to empathy and maybe emotion regulation.
• try a new route to work when there’s traffic on our usual path
• adjust our opinion after hearing new, convincing evidence
• switch between work tasks when priorities shift
• change plans quickly when something unexpected comes up (e.g., a canceled meeting)
• understand metaphors, sarcasm, and irony without taking things literally
• Also related to thinking outside the box: why cognitive flexibility is linked to creativity

Question 22

Why is cognitive flexibility one of the last EF that develops in children ?

Answer 22

probably because it needs first inhibitor control and working memory

Question 23

EFs in neurotypical individuals across the lifespan

Answer 23

Childhood:
* EFs begin to develop in infancy with strong development from ages 3 to 12
* Near-adult performance reached around age 12 or later
Adolescence:
* Continued but subtle gains in EFs
Aging:
* Declines in EFs begin in later adulthood
* Older adults experience slower stopping speeds on go/no go tasks (measure of inhibitory control) and difficulties with suppressing irrelevant information

Question 24

EFs in autistic individuals across the lifespan

Answer 24

Many studies on EFs do not track developmental trajectories in autistic individuals and often rely on mixed age groups , which complicates the interpretation of findings related to EF performance
Childhood:
* Mixed results, but most studies report that autistic children experience difficulties across all EF components. These difficulties persist throughout development
Adolescence
* Some evidence shows gradual improvements in EFs over time, though these improvements are typically more limited compared to neurotypical development

Question 25

Why do we observe mixed results on EFs in autistic individuals ?

Answer 25

Autism is a spectrum; every individual is unique. - Usually studies do not consider variability in the autistic population : when we have participants who underperform and who overperform in comparison to neurotypical population, they kind of average each other and we do not see the differences on executive functions. - Solution : control for as many measures as possible

Question 26

Traditional EF Tasks

Answer 26

Highly controlled, standardized, and lack real-world context; may not capture the complexity of everyday EF demands - Not ecologically valid lab tasks, many people with PFC difficulties are better at lab tasks for example

Question 27

Informant-Based Measures

Answer 27

Tools like the questionaire Behavioral Rating Inventory Executive Functions (BRIEF; Gioia et al., 2000) provide a more comprehensive assessment of EFs and can identify differences not captured by lab tasks (Demetriou et al., 2019). - However may be very subjective and there might be inconsistencies between the informant based that was completed by caregiver and participant.

Question 28

Best Approach to measure EFs

Answer 28

Using both lab tasks and informant-based measures within a single study for a more comprehensive assessment of EFs

Question 29

Cold vs hot Efs

Answer 29

cold EF : EF tasks without emotional demands hot EFs : associated with emotional or motivational demands

Question 30

Patients with lesions to the ________ prefrontal cortex might demonstrate difficulties in social and emotional executive function while performing good on cold executive function tasks such as Stroop color naming tasks.

Answer 30

Ventromedial

Question 31

Hot EF development

Answer 31

- Mid-adolescence - Ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Question 32

Cold EF development

Answer 32

- Less emotionally charged task - 12 years of age - Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Question 33

____ EFs have been proposed to be more affected in autism

Answer 33

Hot : this could be because hot EFs require emotion regulation, an area of difficulty in autism

Question 34

If we are going to compare autistic to neurotypical individuals on ___ executive function task, we actually might see the difference.

Answer 34

Hot