Executive Functions and Their Disorders

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core concepts, neural correlates, clinical syndromes, assessment batteries, and stress-related dysfunctions of executive functions based on Introduction to Neuropsychology lecture notes.

Executive Functions (EF)

Higher-order cognitive processes that enable individuals to plan, regulate, monitor, and flexibly modify goal-directed behaviour.

Cold Executive Functions

Cognitive control processes operating with relatively low emotional or motivational salience, including abstract reasoning, problem-solving, planning, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, subserved primarily by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).

Hot Executive Functions

Executive control processes that operate under a strong influence of emotion, motivation, and reward, including emotion regulation, reward and punishment processing, and decision-making under uncertainty, subserved primarily by the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC).

Unity-Diversity Framework (Miyake et al., 2000)

The model proposing that executive functions share underlying core mechanisms (unity) while simultaneously maintaining distinct, separable cognitive processes (diversity) among inhibition, updating, and shifting.

Inhibition (Inhibitory Control)

The core executive component responsible for suppressing dominant, prepotent, automatic, or inappropriate responses, filtering out distracting information, and exerting top-down control to support self-regulation.

Updating

The core executive component involving the continuous monitoring and modifying of information held in working memory, integrating relevant new material, and purging outdated or irrelevant data.

Shifting (Cognitive Flexibility)

The core executive ability to disengage from a previous rule, strategy, or mental set and flexibly redirect attentional focus to adopt a new rule, perspective, or task demand.

Central Executive

The supervisory component in the Baddeley & Hitch working memory model that directs attention, regulates information flow, and coordinates the subordinate slave systems.

Visuospatial Sketchpad

The subsystem within Baddeley & Hitch's working memory model responsible for maintaining and manipulating visual and spatial information.

Phonological Loop

The working memory component that temporarily maintains and rehearses verbal and auditory information.

Episodic Buffer

The component of the Baddeley & Hitch working memory model that integrates multimodal information from the slave systems and long-term memory into a coherent, chronological representation.

Effortful Control

An innate temperamental predisposition to voluntarily exercise self-regulation by suppressing a dominant response to perform a subdominant response.

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

The non-motor portion of the frontal lobe, making up approximately $30\%$ to $35\%$ of the neocortex, that plays a critical role in cognitive control, action selection, and goal-directed behaviour.

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (dlPFC)

A key prefrontal subregion primarily involved in working memory maintenance and manipulation, rule-based planning, and cool cognitive control.

Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC)

A ventral prefrontal brain area critically involved in reward evaluation, behavioral regulation, impulse control, and learning from reinforcement.

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (vmPFC)

A prefrontal region implicated in emotional integration, value-based decision-making, autonomic regulation, and motivational drive.

Dorsolateral Frontal Syndrome (Dysexecutive Syndrome)

A neurocognitive syndrome caused by dlPFC damage, presenting with deficits in planning, strategy formation, working memory, organization, cognitive flexibility, and perseveration, often with slowed processing.

Orbitofrontal Syndrome (Disinhibition Syndrome)

A frontal syndrome caused by OFC damage, characterized by poor impulse control, disinhibited and socially inappropriate behaviour, impaired judgment, and difficulty learning from reward and punishment despite intact basic cognition.

Medial Frontal Syndrome (Apathy Syndrome)

A clinical syndrome resulting from medial frontal and anterior cingulate damage, manifesting as profound loss of initiative, blunted spontaneous speech and movement, and reduced goal-directed behaviour.

Akinetic Mutism

A severe state of behavioral initiation failure seen in marked medial frontal/anterior cingulate damage, where an awake patient neither speaks nor initiates voluntary movement.

Five-Point Test

A standardized design fluency task assessing nonverbal strategy formation, cognitive flexibility, and working memory by requiring examinees to generate unique patterns by connecting dots within five-dot matrices under specific rules.

Zoo Map Test

An executive function task in which an individual must formulate and follow an efficient route to visit specified locations in a zoo while adhering to designated spatial rules.

Tower of Hanoi

A neuropsychological puzzle task assessing planning, problem-solving, and working memory by requiring discs to be transferred between pegs one at a time without placing a larger disc on top of a smaller one.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)

A clinical assessment of cognitive flexibility, rule discovery, and shifting that requires participants to sort cards based on changing feedback criteria (color, shape, or number).

Go/No-go Task

A behavioral test of motor response inhibition in which participants must respond rapidly to target stimuli ('Go') and withhold their prepotent response upon encountering non-target stimuli ('No-go').

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)

A neuropsychological assessment of hot executive function that evaluates decision-making under uncertainty, risk-taking, and sensitivity to reward versus punishment using decks with varying reward/penalty profiles.

Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS)

A standardized diagnostic test battery developed by Wilson et al. (1996) comprising ecologically valid tasks (e.g., Rule Shift Cards, Zoo Map Test, Key Search Task) designed to assess executive dysfunction in everyday contexts.

Key Search Task

A subtest of the BADS assessing planning and strategy formation by requiring an individual to draw a continuous path across a blank square depicting an effective search strategy for a lost key.

Perseveration

The abnormal, involuntary continuation or recurrence of an activity, response, or rule despite changing task demands or feedback demonstrating it is no longer appropriate.

Clock Drawing Test (CDT)

A rapid multi-domain screening task requiring patients to draw a clock face setting the hands to a specified time ($10:11$), assessing planning, visuospatial processing, abstract conceptualization, and monitoring.

Stimulus-Bound Response

A cognitive error pattern observed on the Clock Drawing Test where an individual's action is captured by the perceptual stimulus (such as drawing clock hands directly pointing toward numbers 10 and 11 instead of setting 10 minutes past 11).

Top-Down Attention

Goal-driven, voluntary attentional control directed by internal intentions, prefrontal mechanisms, and prior knowledge to focus on task-relevant information.

Bottom-Up Attention

Involuntary, stimulus-driven attentional capture triggered automatically by salient, sudden, or emotionally threatening environmental cues.