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"Executive ability in adolescence."
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The developmental trajectories of executive function from adolescence to old age
Executive functions demonstrate variable developmental and aging profiles, with protracted development into early adulthood and declines in older age. However, relatively few studies have specifically included middle-aged adults in investigations of age-related differences in executive functions. This study explored the age-related differences in executive function from late childhood through to old age, allowing a more informed understanding of executive functions across the lifespan. Three hundred and fifty participants aged 10 to 86 years-old completed a battery of tasks assessing the specific roles of inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning. Results highlighted continued improvement in working memory capacity across adolescence and into young adulthood, followed by declines in both working memory and inhibitory control, beginning from as early as 30–40 years old and continuing into older age. Analyses of planning abilities showed continued improvement across adolescence and into young adulthood, followed by a decline in abilities across adulthood, with a small (positive) change in older age. Interestingly, a dissociation was found for cognitive flexibility; switch costs decreased, yet mixing costs increased across the lifespan. The results provide a description of the developmental differences in inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility and planning, above any effects of IQ or SES, and highlight the importance of including middle-aged adults in studies seeking to establish a more comprehensive picture of age-related differences in executive function.
Journal Article
Differential associations of threat and deprivation with emotion regulation and cognitive control in adolescence
Research on childhood adversity has traditionally focused on single types of adversity, which is limited because of high co-occurrence, or on the total number of adverse experiences, which assumes that diverse experiences influence development similarly. Identifying dimensions of environmental experience that are common to multiple types of adversity may be a more effective strategy. We examined the unique associations of two such dimensions (threat and cognitive deprivation) with automatic emotion regulation and cognitive control using a multivariate approach that simultaneously examined both dimensions of adversity. Data were drawn from a community sample of adolescents (N = 287) with variability in exposure to violence, an indicator of threat, and poverty, which is associated with cognitive deprivation. Adolescents completed tasks measuring automatic emotion regulation and cognitive control in neutral and emotional contexts. Violence was associated with automatic emotion regulation deficits, but not cognitive control; poverty was associated with poor cognitive control, but not automatic emotion regulation. Both violence and poverty predicted poor inhibition in an emotional context. Utilizing an approach focused on either single types of adversity or cumulative risk obscured specificity in the associations of violence and poverty with emotional and cognitive outcomes. These findings suggest that different dimensions of childhood adversity have distinct influences on development and highlight the utility of a differentiated multivariate approach.
Journal Article
P300 Development across the Lifespan: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
The P300 component of the event-related potential is a large positive waveform that can be extracted from the ongoing electroencephalogram using a two-stimuli oddball paradigm, and has been associated with cognitive information processing (e.g. memory, attention, executive function). This paper reviews the development of the auditory P300 across the lifespan.
A systematic review and meta-analysis on the P300 was performed including 75 studies (n = 2,811). Scopus was searched for studies using healthy subjects and that reported means of P300 latency and amplitude measured at Pz and mean age. These findings were validated in an independent, existing cross-sectional dataset including 1,572 participants from ages 6-87. Curve-fitting procedures were applied to obtain a model of P300 development across the lifespan. In both studies logarithmic Gaussian models fitted the latency and amplitude data best. The P300 latency and amplitude follow a maturational path from childhood to adolescence, resulting in a period that marks a plateau, after which degenerative effects begin. We were able to determine ages that mark a maximum (in P300 amplitude) or trough (in P300 latency) segregating maturational from degenerative stages. We found these points of deflection occurred at different ages.
It is hypothesized that latency and amplitude index different aspects of brain maturation. The P300 latency possibly indexes neural speed or brain efficiency. The P300 amplitude might index neural power or cognitive resources, which increase with maturation.
Journal Article
Global deficits in executive functioning are transdiagnostic mediators between severe childhood neglect and psychopathology in adolescence
Children reared in institutions experience profound deprivation that is associated with both heightened levels of psychopathology and deficits in executive functioning (EF). It is unclear whether deficits in EF among institutionally-reared children serve as a vulnerability factor that increases risk for later psychopathology. It is also unclear whether this putative association between EF and psychopathology is transdiagnostic (i.e. cuts across domains of psychopathology), or specific to a given syndrome. Thus, we examined whether global deficits in EF mediate the association between severe childhood neglect and general v. specific psychopathology in adolescence.
The sample consisted of 188 children from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a longitudinal study examining the brain and behavioral development of children reared in Romanian institutions and a comparison group of never-institutionalized children. EF was assessed at age 8, 12, and 16 using a well-validated measure of neuropsychological functioning. Psychopathology was measured as general (P) and specific internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) factors at age 12 and 16.
Institutionally-reared children had lower global EF and higher general psychopathology (P) at all ages compared to never-institutionalized children. Longitudinal path analysis revealed that the effect of institutionalization on P at age 16 operated indirectly through poorer EF from ages 8 to 12. No indirect effects involving EF were observed for INT or EXT at age 16.
We conclude that stable, global deficits in EF serve as a cognitive endophenotype that increases transdiagnostic vulnerability to psychopathology in adolescence among those who have experienced profound early neglect.
Journal Article
Executive dysfunction in depression in adolescence: the role of inflammation and higher body mass
There is substantial evidence that many depressed individuals experience impaired executive functioning. Understanding the causes of executive dysfunction in depression is clinically important because cognitive impairment is a substantial contributor to functional impairment. This study investigated whether elevated levels of an inflammatory cytokine [interleukin-6 (IL-6)] and/or higher body mass index (BMI) concurrently and/or prospectively accounted for the relationship between depressive symptoms and impaired executive functioning in adolescents.
A diverse, community sample of adolescents (N = 288; mean age = 16.33; 51.4% female; 59.0% African-American) completed assessments of height and weight, IL-6, depressive symptoms, and self-report/behavioral measures of executive functioning (selective attention, switching attention) and future orientation annually over 3 years. Adolescents experiencing acute illness or medical conditions that affect inflammation were excluded from analyses. Path analysis within a structural equation modeling framework simultaneously examined the concurrent and prospective relationships between BMI, IL-6, depressive symptoms, and the measures of cognitive functioning across three timepoints.
Across all timepoints, higher BMI was prospectively associated with higher levels of IL-6 and depressive symptoms, while higher levels of IL-6 were associated with worse performance on three behavioral and self-report measures of cognitive functioning. Higher depressive symptoms also were prospectively associated with elevated IL-6 and both higher depressive symptoms and a higher BMI predicted worse future executive functioning via increased IL-6.
More severe depressive symptoms and increased BMI may disrupt executive functioning via elevated IL-6.
Journal Article
A Developmental Perspective on Executive Function
This review article examines theoretical and methodological issues in the construction of a developmental perspective on executive function (EF) in childhood and adolescence. Unlike most reviews of EF, which focus on preschoolers, this review focuses on studies that include large age ranges. It outlines the development of the foundational components of EF— inhibition, working memory, and shifting. Cognitive and neurophysiological assessments show that although EF emerges during the first few years of life, it continues to strengthen significantly throughout childhood and adolescence. The components vary somewhat in their developmental trajectories. The article relates the findings to long-standing issues of development (e.g., developmental sequences, trajectories, and processes) and suggests research needed for constructing a developmental framework encompassing early childhood through adolescence.
Journal Article
Age-related differences in the impact of cannabis use on the brain and cognition: a systematic review
The impact of cannabis on the adolescent compared to adult brain is of interest to researchers and society alike. From a theoretical perspective, adolescence represents a period of both risk and resilience to the harms of cannabis use and cannabis use disorders. The aim of this systematic review is to provide a critical examination of the moderating role of age on the relationship between cannabis use and cognition. To this end, we reviewed human and animal studies that formally tested whether age, adolescent or adult, changes the relationship between cannabis exposure and cognitive outcomes. While the results of this review do not offer a conclusive answer on the role of age, the novel review question, along with the inclusion of both human and animal work, has allowed for the formation of new hypotheses to be addressed in future work. First, general executive functioning seems to be more impaired in adolescent frequent cannabis users compared to adult frequent cannabis users. Second, age-effects may be most prominent among very heavy and dependent users. Third, craving and inhibitory control may not decrease as much post-intoxication in adolescents compared to adults. Lastly, adolescents’ vulnerability to reduced learning following cannabis use may not persist after sustained abstinence. If these hypotheses prove correct, it could lead to important developments in policy and prevention efforts.
Journal Article
Transactional relations between developmental trajectories of executive functioning and internalizing and externalizing symptomatology in adolescence
Adolescence is a period of social, physical, and neurobiological transitions that may leave individuals more vulnerable to the development of internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Extant research demonstrates that executive functioning (EF) is associated with psychopathology outcomes in adolescence; however, it has yet to be examined how EF and psychopathology develop transactionally over time. Data were collected from 167 adolescents (47% female, 13–14 years old at Time 1) and their primary caregiver over 4 years. At each time point, adolescents completed three behavioral tasks that capture the underlying dimensions of EF, and both adolescents and their primary caregiver completed measures of adolescent psychopathology. Latent growth curve modeling was used to test the associations between initial levels and trajectories of EF and psychopathology. Results indicated that higher initial levels of internalizing and externalizing symptomatology were associated with lower EF at Time 4 (controlling for Time 1 EF). Initial levels of EF did not predict changes in internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. These findings suggest that early psychopathology may be a risk factor for maladaptive EF development in adolescence.
Journal Article