Does Atomoxetine Improve Executive Function, Inhibitory Control, and Hyperactivity?

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 653-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Wehmeier ◽  
Alexander Schacht ◽  
Fredrik Ulberstad ◽  
Martin Lehmann ◽  
Christian Schneider-Fresenius ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
Boji P W Lam ◽  
Zenzi M Griffin ◽  
Thomas P Marquardt

Abstract Objective The happy–sad task adapts the classic day–night task by incorporating two early acquired emotional concepts (“happy” and “sad”) and demonstrates elevated inhibitory demands for native speakers. The task holds promise as a new executive function measure for assessing inhibitory control across the lifespan, but no studies have examined the influence of language of test administration on performance. Method Seventy adult native English speakers and 50 non-native speakers completed the computerized day–night and the new happy–sad tasks administered in English. In two conditions, participants were categorized pictorial stimuli either in a congruent manner (“happy” for a happy face) or in a more challenging, incongruent manner (“sad” for a happy face). Lexical decision performance was obtained to estimate levels of English language proficiency. Results Native speakers and non-native speakers performed comparably except for the critical incongruent condition of the happy–sad task, where native speakers responded more slowly. A greater congruency effect for the happy–sad task was found for native than for non-native speakers. Lexical decision performance was associated with performance on the challenging incongruent conditions. Conclusion This study reinforced the usefulness of the happy–sad task as a new measure in evaluating inhibitory control in adult native-speakers. However, the language of test administration needs to be considered in assessment because it may lead to performance differences between native and non-native speakers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 755
Author(s):  
Falonn Contreras-Osorio ◽  
Christian Campos-Jara ◽  
Cristian Martínez-Salazar ◽  
Luis Chirosa-Ríos ◽  
Darío Martínez-García

One of the most studied aspects of children’s cognitive development is that of the development of the executive function, and research has shown that physical activity has been demonstrated as a key factor in its enhancement. This meta-analysis aims to assess the impact of specific sports interventions on the executive function of children and teenagers. A systematic review was carried out on 1 November 2020 to search for published scientific evidence that analysed different sports programs that possibly affected executive function in students. Longitudinal studies, which assessed the effects of sports interventions on subjects between 6 and 18 years old, were identified through a systematic search of the four principal electronic databases: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and EBSCO. A total of eight studies, with 424 subjects overall, met the inclusion criteria and were classified based on one or more of the following categories: working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. The random-effects model for meta-analyses was performed with RevMan version 5.3 to facilitate the analysis of the studies. Large effect sizes were found in all categories: working memory (ES −1.25; 95% CI −1.70; −0.79; p < 0.0001); inhibitory control (ES −1.30; 95% CI −1.98; −0.63; p < 0.00001); and cognitive flexibility (ES −1.52; 95% CI −2.20; −0.83; p < 0.00001). Our analysis concluded that healthy children and teenagers should be encouraged to practice sports in order to improve their executive function at every stage of their development.


Author(s):  
H. J. Madhushanthi ◽  
Savithri W. Wimalasekera ◽  
C. Sampatha E. Goonewardena ◽  
A. A. Thamara D. Amarasekara ◽  
Janaka Lenora

Abstract Objective Previous studies have shown that high socioeconomic status (SES) is significantly associated with inhibitory control, working memory, verbal comprehension and IQ. However, in the Asian setting, with its prevailing poverty, information about the influence of SES on cognitive development of female adolescents is limited. This study was aimed to investigate the association between SES and neurocognitive performance of early female adolescents in Sri Lanka. Methods Female adolescents aged 11–14 years (n = 200) of low and middle SES were studied to assess neurocognitive function. After obtaining baseline data, eight subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC – IV), Test Of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI-3) and two computer-based executive function tests (inhibition and visuo-spatial working memory) were administered to assess neurocognitive measures of the above adolescents. The results were compiled into a data base and analyzed using SPSS version 20 statistical software. Results Higher SES was associated with higher performance in all neurocognitive tests. Low SES adolescents obtained significantly poor test scores for executive function test (inhibitory control: p < 0.0001) and for WISC [verbal comprehension index (VCI): p < 0.0001), working memory index (WMI): p < 0.0001 and estimated full scale IQ (EFSIQ): p < 0.0001)] when compared with middle SES adolescents. Maternal education alone significantly predicts VCI and EFSIQ than the combined influence of parental education, occupation and income. Psychosocial adversities of adolescents were inversely correlated with VCI (r = −0.30; p < 0.001) and EFSIQ (r = −0.20; p < 0.001) of WISC and mathematics performance (r = −0.34; p < 0.001) at examination in school. Conclusion Findings of the study revealed the importance of upliftment of SES of the society to improve the cognitive and academic outcomes of low SES individuals.


Medicina ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (7) ◽  
pp. 363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Narimani ◽  
Samad Esmaeilzadeh ◽  
Liane B. Azevedo ◽  
Akbar Moradi ◽  
Behrouz Heidari ◽  
...  

Background and objectives: To explore the association between weight status and executive function in young adults. Materials and Methods: Ninety-seven young males (age 17–26 years) underwent adiposity and body composition measurements using body composition analyzer. Inhibitory control and working memory were measured using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Battery (CANTAB). Results: Multiple linear regression using both unadjusted and adjusted analyses revealed no association between adiposity and body composition variables with executive tasks, apart from a significant association between skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and mean reaction time on go trial (standardized B = -0.28; p = 0.02). Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed that underweight participants presented inferior working memory compared to their normal weight (p = 0.001) or overweight peers (p = 0.008). However, according to the percentage fat quartiles (Q) participants with the highest quartile (Q4) were inferior in inhibitory control than their peers with Q2 (p = 0.04), and participants with the lowest quartile (Q1) were inferior in working memory compared with their peers with Q2 (p = 0.01) or Q3 (p = 0.02). A worse inhibitory control was observed for participants with the highest fat/SMM (Q4) compared to participants in Q3 (p = 0.03), and in contrast worse working memory was observed for participants with the lowest fat/SMM (Q1) compared to participants in Q2 (p = 0.04) or Q3 (p = 0.009). Conclusions: Low adiposity is associated with worse working memory, whereas high adiposity is associated with worse inhibitory control. Therefore, our findings show that normal adiposity, but greater SMM may have a positive impact on executive function in young adults.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Margaret Hill

During the school-age years, children learn most new word meanings from context rather than through deliberate vocabulary instruction. However, the actual process of word learning from context among schoolage children remains poorly understood. Prior research suggests that language ability and higher-order executive function skills such as working memory and inhibitory control of attention may aid children in acquiring new word meanings from context, but studies have not examined the effect of cognitive flexibility on word learning. In addition, although research has shown that children from families of low socioeconomic status (SES) often lag behind their peers from higher-SES backgrounds in vocabulary, there is no evidence to suggest that SES directly influences the word learning process itself. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of language ability, SES, and executive function on word learning from context among typically developing children. Fifty children of ages nine to 11 years completed a standardized measure of language ability and tasks of working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility along with a pretest to assess their understanding of 12 rare target words. Approximately one week later, the children read along with two short stories containing the target words while listening as the stories were narrated aloud by a computer. Posttest results showed that as a group, children made small but significant gains in knowledge of target word meanings from the stories. Analyses showed that both language ability and cognitive flexibility were related to gains in word knowledge, and that children tended to rely more on the stronger of these two skills if either language or cognitive flexibility was relatively weak. Children's SES backgrounds were not directly related to word knowledge gains, but results suggested that SES may influence the word learning process indirectly through an effect on children's cognitive flexibility.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Krumpe ◽  
Christian Scharinger ◽  
Wolfgang Rosenstiel ◽  
Peter Gerjets ◽  
Martin Spueler

In this paper, we demonstrate how machine learning (ML) can be used to beneficially complement the traditional analysis of behavioral and physiological data to provide new insights into the structure of mental states, in this case, executive functions (EFs) with a focus on inhibitory control. We used a modified Flanker task with the aim to distinguish three levels of inhibitory control: no inhibition, readiness for inhibition and the actual execution of inhibitory control. A simultaneously presented n-back task was used to additionally induce demands on a second executive function. This design enabled us to investigate how the overlap of resources influences the distinction between three levels of inhibitory control. A support vector machine (SVM) based classification approach has been used on EEG data to predict the level of inhibitory control on single-subject and single-trial level. The SVM classification is a subject-specific and single-trial based approach which will be compared to standard group-level statistical approaches to reveal that both methodologies access different properties of the data. We show that considering both methods can give new insights into mental states which cannot be discovered when only using group-level statistics alone. Machine learning results indicate that three different levels of inhibitory control can be distinguished, while the group-average analysis does not give rise to this assumption. In addition, we highlight one other important benefit of the ML approach. We are able to define specific properties of the executive function inhibition by investigating the neural activation patterns that were used during the classification process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changzhi Zhao ◽  
Siyuan Shang ◽  
Alison M. Compton ◽  
Genyue Fu ◽  
Liyang Sai

This study used longitudinal cross-lagged modeling to examine the contribution of theory of mind (ToM), executive function (EF) to children’s lying development and of children’s lying to ToM and EF development. Ninety-seven Chinese children (initial Mage = 46 months, 47 boys) were tested three times approximately 4 months apart. Results showed that the diverse desire understanding and knowledge access understanding components of ToM, as well as the inhibitory control component of EF predicted the development of children’s lying, while the diverse belief understanding and false belief understanding components of ToM, and the working memory component of EF did not predict development of children’s lying. Meanwhile, children’s lying predicted development of children’s belief-emotion understanding components of ToM, but not any other ToM components, or EF components. These findings provide longitudinal evidence for the relation between ToM, EF, and children’s lying during the preschool years.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-21
Author(s):  
Heru Astikasari Setya Murti ◽  
Thomas Dicky Hastjarjo ◽  
Bhina Patria

Misconception in psychology is a belief that is broadly contradicting to scientific evidence and is particularlycommon in the field of psychology. It is important to study misconceptions in psychology considering thecontribution of the effort to provide education or to demonstrate rejection of fallacies of popular ideas/themes.Misconceptions in psychology relates to critical thinking as well as the executive function (EF) that controls andregulates cognitive processes. This research aims to determine the role of critical thinking and EF (cognitiveflexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control) with misconceptions in psychology. This study used non-experimental methods, using test (paper and pencil) and PEBL/ Psychology Experiment Building Language(computerized). The sampling technique used was convenience sampling. The subjects in this study were 153psychology students, consisting of 105 students from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and 48 students fromUniversitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY). Instruments that were used for data collection were the misconception inpsychology test, critical thinking test, Wisconsin/Berg Card Sorting Test (WCST/BCST), Backward Digit Span,and Stroop Test. There is no correlation between cognitive flexibility and misconceptions in psychology, socognitive flexibility is not included in the calculation of hierarchical regression analysis. Based on the results ofhierarchical regression analysis, it can be concluded that the role of inhibitory control on psychologicalmisconceptions is 11.4%, ΔR2 = .114; b* = .33; t(149) = 4.52, p < .001; the role of working memory is 3%, ΔR2 =.030; b* = -.16; t(149) = -2.19, p = .03; and the role of critical thinking is 2.6%, ΔR2 = .026; b* = -.19; t(149) = -2.53, p = .01.


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