Executive Functioning in Adolescent Depressive Disorders

Previous research on executive functioning within adolescent depression has provided somewhat inconsistent results, although the majority of research has identified at least partial evidence of executive functioning deficits in adolescent depression. The present study attempted to explore adolescent depression, specifically depressive disorder diagnoses and self-reported depressive/anxious symptoms, as well as executive functioning through the retrospective chart review of an inpatient/outpatient adolescent sample. The total sample (N = 155) was divided into four groups. The psychiatric inpatient sample was subdivided into a Major Depression Group (n = 22), Minor Depression Group (n = 28), Inpatient Control Group (n = 73) based on the discharge diagnoses. The Outpatient Control Group (n = 33) consisted of a group of adolescents who received evaluations at a neuropsychological evaluation clinic. Analyses of variance between the four clinical groups and follow-up pairwise comparisons revealed lowered executive functioning performance in major and minor depression groups compared to the outpatient control. Lowered working memory/simple attention was identified in minor and major depression, while lowered cognitive flexibility/set shifting was only identified in major depression, suggesting a continuum of executive dysfunction and depression severity. More generally, the inpatient groups displayed lower executive functioning than the outpatient control, with no identified executive functioning differences between inpatient groups. Additionally, no negative correlations were observed between self-reported depressive/anxious symptoms and executive functioning. These results are consistent with the majority of related research, and highlight the importance of executive functions in adolescent depression, and more broadly in adolescent psychopathology.     

Aging, Executive Functioning, and Social Control

ABSTRACT— Aging is associated with atrophy of the frontal lobes of the brain, which are the seat of executive functions. Because successful social functioning often requires executive control, aging can lead to unintended social changes via deficits in executive control. In this article I review evidence that, due to losses in executive control, aging leads to increased prejudice and social inappropriateness and, under certain circumstances, increased depression and problem gambling. I then discuss theory and research suggesting possible interventions that might ameliorate unwanted social changes brought about by executive decline.     

从心理理论的脑机制研究看心理理论与执行功能的关系

心理理论发展与执行功能的关系以及心理理论脑机制的研究是近年来心理理论研究中的一个热点。文章首先对心理理论与执行功能关系的研究现状进行了分析与概括,提出了目前研究中的问题;然后从介绍了心理理论脑机制研究现状,并以此为基础探讨了心理理论与执行功能的关系。     

Self-Reported Depressive Symptoms Have Minimal Effect on Executive Functioning Performance in Children and Adolescents

The relation between mood and executive functioning in children and adolescents has not been previously reported. This study examined the association between self-reported depressive symptoms in both clinical outpatient and psychiatric inpatient samples to the following measures of executive functioning: the Controlled Oral Word Association Test, Animal Naming, Trail Making Test, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Records from children and adolescents aged 7–17 years old with an IQ > 70 were examined. Data were gathered at either an outpatient neuropsychology clinic (n = 89) or an inpatient psychiatric hospital setting (n = 81). Mood was measured with the Children’s Depression Inventory. Generally, statistical associations between self-reported depressive symptoms and executive functioning were small and non-significant. The variance predicted by mood on measures of executive functioning was minimal (generally less than 2 %) for the total sample, the outpatient group, inpatient group, and a subgroup who endorsed elevated mood symptoms. These results suggest that impaired performance on measures of executive functioning in children and adolescents is minimally related to self-reported depressive symptoms.     

情绪唤起对执行功能的作用

执行功能是对基本认知加工进行有意心理控制的所有高级认知过程.最近10年,情绪唤起对执行功能的作用机制吸引愈来愈多的研究兴趣,其中,消极情绪(尤其焦虑、抑郁)已被普遍证实损害执行功能的运行效率;积极情绪如何作用执行功能尚不明确.鉴于后者研究中的理论假设匮乏,近年兴起的积极情绪的扩展建构理论以及动机维度模型,能为理解积极情绪如何作用执行功能提供线索与启发.未来研究应深入探讨不同动机强度的积极及消极情绪对执行功能的作用机制,在这之中也应细致区分情绪唤起与情绪刺激的不同效应.     

Executive Cognitive Functioning and Risk for Substance Abuse

Individuals with a substance use disorder (SUD) exhibit deficits in executive cognitive functioning (ECF). ECF is involved in the regulation of goal-directed behavior and includes abilities such as attentional control, strategic goal planning, organization, and cognitive flexibility. The prefrontal cortex is believed to be the primary cortical substrate that subserves ECF. Children deemed at high risk for drug abuse because they have parents with SUD similarly demonstrate cognitive limitations suggesting an ECF deficit. High-risk children, as a group, also exhibit deviations in temperament, an attenuated amplitude of the P300 event-related potential, and heightened aggressivity compared with control groups. These latter characteristics are associated with low ECF capacity and are believed to reflect dysfunction within the prefrontal cortex. It is hypothesized that deviations on these traits form a core disorder of affective, cognitive, and behavioral dysregulation that serves as a general vulnerability factor for SUD.     

执行功能与攻击行为关系的研究

攻击行为产生的原因十分复杂,受当今认知神经科学的影响,心理学研究人员从执行功能的角度来探讨攻击行为。现有的研究主要从心理学、流行病学、行为神经学、神经心理学和神经成像角度,考察和分析二者内在的关联,结果表明在暴力犯罪、反社会人格、杀人犯、精神病患者、少年犯、注意缺陷-多动障碍等群体,执行功能与攻击行为间存在很强的负向关联。将来的研究需要拓宽研究被试群体,深入考察内在的脑机制,制定恰当的攻击行为干预方法。     

Identification and Description of New Tests of Executive Functioning in Children

The understanding of executive functioning in pediatric neuropsychological evaluation is of clinical significance, yet there are few developmentally appropriate executive function measures that have been adequately normed in this population. The present study provides normative data, collected on a sample of 89 normal children from ages 7-12, for several measures thought to be appropriate for assessing executive functioning in children. Executive function measures were selected and/or modified to be developmentally appropriate, to tap less complex and integrative aspects of executive function, and to assess fundamental working memory (Self-Ordered Pointing: Delayed Alternation/Non-alternation) and inhibitory control (Developmental Stroop tasks: Go/No Go) dimensions of executive functioning. The results supported the potential utility of these measures in assessing those abilities in children.     

挫折情境下自我肯定对执行功能的影响

为探讨挫折情境下自我肯定对执行功能的影响,创设挫折和非挫折情境,采用价值观自我肯定干预,通过Stroop范式和2-back范式分别测量抑制控制和工作记忆的刷新能力。结果发现,挫折情境下的Stroop任务和2-back任务反应时均高于非挫折情境;挫折情境下自我肯定组在Stroop任务和2-back任务上的反应时均显著低于非自我肯定组,而非挫折情境下两组的反应时没有显著性差异;Stroop效应量在情境与肯定条件上的交互作用不显著。结果表明挫折降低了执行功能的任务表现,自我肯定干预能够改善挫折情境下执行功能相关的任务成绩,促进了个体对工作记忆任务的刷新能力和Stroop任务的认知表现,但对抑制控制能力的改善没有明显作用。     

Executive Functioning and Delay Discounting of Four Different Outcomes in University Students

The study investigated a potential relationship between level of executive functioning and rates of delay discounting (i.e., the subjective decrease in the value of an outcome if its delivery is delayed). University students completed an executive-functioning questionnaire and then a delay-discounting task involving four different outcomes (money, cigarettes, dating partner, body image). Results showed that the overall measure of executive functioning was a significant predictor of rates of discounting of three of the four outcomes, and approached significance for the fourth outcome. Further, different subscales of executive functioning were significantly correlated with discounting of different outcomes. These results suggest that executive functioning plays a role in discounting of delayed outcomes and that procedures designed to affect either executive function or delay discounting might result in concomitant changes in the other measure.     

Sense of Time and Executive Functioning in Children and Adults

A number of patient studies suggest that impairments in frontal lobe functions are associated with disorders in temporal information processing. One implication of these findings is that subjective experience of time should be related to executive functions regardless of etiology. In two experiments, we examined sense of time in relation to components of executive functioning in healthy children and adults. In Experiment 1, children between 8 to 12 years completed six experimental tasks that tapped three components of executive functioning: inhibition, updating, and mental shifting. Sense of time was examined in a duration judgment task in which participants reproduced stimulus durations between 4 to 32 s. In Experiment 2, adult participants completed the time reproduction task under varying concurrent task demands. Both experiments showed selective effects in that time reproduction errors were related to the inhibition and updating, but not to the shifting, components of executive functioning. However, the observed effects were modulated by task demands and age-related differences in cognitive competence. We conclude that individual differences in executive functioning are only weakly related to time reproduction performance in healthy children and adults.     

Positive mood and executive function: evidence from stroop and fluency tasks

Contrasting predictions have been made about the effects of positive mood states on the performance of frontal lobe tests that tap executive functions such as inhibition, switching, and strategy use. It has been argued that positive mood is likely to improve some cognitive processes, particularly those dependent on the frontal cortex and anterior cingulate of the brain. However, there is some evidence that happy mood may impair executive functioning. The current experiments investigated the effects of positive mood on Stoop and fluency tests, which are frequently used to assess executive function. Positive mood impaired performance on a switching condition of the Stroop test, but improved performance on a creative uses test of fluency. The effect of positive mood on an executive task may therefore depend on whether a task is inherently motivating or is impaired by diffuse semantic activation.     

Executive Functioning in Children and Adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder

The present investigation examined neurocognitive functioning, focusing on executive functioning (EF), in 39 children and adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and 24 healthy control subjects all ages 8 to 17 years. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition along with several measures of executive functioning including the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, Trail Making Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test, and the Stroop Color Word Test were administered. The neurocognitive profiles for the group of depressed children and adolescents were grossly intact as most scores on intellectual and EF measures fell within the average range and did not differ from the comparison group. Mental processing speed was decreased in the MDD versus normal control group and 27% of the depressed group performed below average on the Trail Making Test. This investigation provided a good base from which to compare future literature on EF in outpatients with early-onset MDD.     

Executive functions and social skills in survivors of pediatric brain tumor

Medical advances have resulted in increased survival rates for children with brain tumors. Consequently, issues related to survivorship have become more critical. The use of multimodal treatment, in particular cranial radiation therapy, has been associated with subsequent cognitive decline. Specifically, deficits in executive functions have been reported in survivors of various types of pediatric brain tumor. Survivors are left with difficulties, particularly in self-monitoring, initiation, inhibition, and planning, to name a few. Another domain in which survivors of pediatric brain tumor have been reported to show difficulty is that of social skills. Parents, teachers, and survivors themselves have reported decreased social functioning following treatment. Deficits in executive functions and social skills are likely interrelated in this population, as executive skills are needed to navigate various aspects of social interaction; however, this has yet to be studied empirically. Twenty-four survivors of pediatric brain tumor were assessed using a computerized task of executive functions, as well as paper-and-pencil measures of social skills and real-world executive skills. Social functioning was related to a specific aspect of executive functions, that is, the survivors' variability in response time, such that inconsistent responding was associated with better parent-reported and survivor-reported social skills, independent of intellectual abilities. Additionally, parent-reported real-world global executive abilities predicted parent-reported social skills. The implications of these findings for social skills interventions and future research are discussed.     

Spatial Reversal as a Measure of Executive Functioning in Children With Autism

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the executive functioning performance of children with autism with chronological- and verbal-matched controls in a spatial-reversal task. Three groups of children participated in this experiment. One group was identified as having autism (7 boys), the 2nd group contained 7 typically developing children (6 boys, 1 girl) who were matched to the 1st group based on their verbal performance, and the 3rd group contained 7 typically functioning children (6 boys, 1 girl) matched to the 1st group based on chronological age. Each group was given a spatial-reversal task containing 2 problems. In the 1st problem, children selected a toy on a particular side in a pair. In the 2nd problem, the contingencies were reversed such that children were to choose the toy on the opposite side. Children with autism generally performed worse than comparison groups as indicated by their overall higher rate of errors. However, these results must be qualified by considering the performance for each problem: Errors for the children with autism were infrequent during the 1st problem but increased in the 2nd, whereas errors for comparison children showed the opposite pattern. When these results from the spatial-reversal task were intérpreted from the perspective of hypothesis-testing theory, the executive functioning deficiency of children with autism was found to involve the selection and testing of stereotypic response sets that were not likely to be revised or changed flexibly according to feedback from the environment or the demands of the task.     

儿童执行功能对数学能力的预测模型

使用数点数广度任务(C-span)、Stroop任务、威斯康星卡片分类任务(WCST)测查儿童的执行功能,用《小学儿童数学能力测查量表》(一年级)、《韦克斯勒儿童智力测量》分别测查儿童的数学能力和智力,对64名小学一年级儿童的执行功能(抑制、转换、刷新)和数学能力的关系进行了研究,相关分析和回归分析发现,数学能力与执行功能任务测量都有显著相关,抑制、转换和刷新都分别对数学能力存在显著回归效应;在此基础上,建立了执行功能及其对儿童数学能力的预测模型。结果表明,抑制控制、转换和刷新都能对数学能力产生直接影响,但抑制控制还通过转换和刷新对数学能力产生间接影响。说明儿童数学能力的认知差异,主要在于抑制控制能力的差异,而抑制控制的差异又导致转换和刷新能力表现的差异。     

Assessing executive functions in traumatic brain injury: an exploratory study of the Executive Interview

Executive dysfunction is a frequent sequela of traumatic brain injury. Two correlational studies using samples of inpatients and outpatients diagnosed with traumatic brain injury were undertaken to evaluate the validity of a bedside screening test of executive functioning, the 1992 Executive Interview EXIT 25 by Royall, Mahurin, and Gray. In the first study of 23 inpatients receiving rehabilitation, the EXIT 25 was strongly related to both the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination. In the second study of 20 outpatients, the EXIT 25 correlated with other executive function measures and with ratings of functional disability at discharge, although a ceiling effect raised questions about its utility for patients with mild to moderate disability. Further study of the EXIT 25 is justified with a larger sample of inpatients, although caution should be exercised when using the EXIT 25 in mildly impaired outpatients.     

Executive functioning as a mediator of the relationship between age and episodic memory in healthy aging

The extent to which age-related differences in executive functioning account for age-related differences in recall from episodic memory was examined in a group of healthy older adults. Fifty-one subjects between the ages of 60 and 91 years were given tests of general cognitive abilities, episodic memory, and executive functioning. A mediational model was proposed with executive functioning as the mediator of the relationship between age and delayed recall. Consistent with this model, regression analyses indicated that, when considered alone, age was a significant predictor of recall (p <.001); however, age was not a significant predictor of recall when the effect of executive functioning was partialled out of the equation (p=.37). Furthermore, the unique contribution of executive functioning accounted for 36% of the variance in recall performance. A significant portion of age-related differences in episodic memory recall, therefore, may be due to age-related differences in the executive skills required for optimal performance on such tests.     

Executive functioning as a potential mediator of age-related cognitive decline in normal adults

Critical requirements for the hypothesis that executive functioning is a potential mediator of age-related effects on cognitive functioning are that variables assumed to reflect executive functioning represent a distinct construct and that age-related effects on other types of cognitive functioning are reduced when measures of executive functioning are statistically controlled. These issues were investigated in a study involving 261 adults between 18 and 84 years of age. Although age-related effects on various cognitive abilities were substantially reduced after statistical control of the variance in measures hypothesized to represent executive functioning, there was only weak evidence for the existence of distinct constructs corresponding to executive functioning or to aspects of executive control concerned with inhibition, updating, or time sharing.