Mapping of Executive Functions / Cartografía de las Funciones Ejecutivas

Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Intervention Programme to Improve Attention in Primary Schools

The importance of attentional capacity for academic performance is highlighted by the increasing demands placed on students during primary school. Between the ages of 7 and 12, there is an evolutionary improvement in attentional capacity and the school environment is considered an appropriate setting in which to develop programmes to improve attention. Heart rate variability is an appropriate indicator of attentional capacity. For all these reasons, a heart rate variability biofeedback intervention focused on breathing was developed and implemented to improve attention. The intervention consisted of two phases. In the first phase, the school teachers were trained to develop the intervention; in the second, students received five individual sessions from their teachers. In each individual session, they learned to breathe to increase their heart rate variability. A total of 272 girls and 314 boys (N = 586) aged 7-12 years participated in the programme. To study the impact of the intervention on three primary school age groups, the attention of Control and Experimental groups was assessed before and after the implementation of the programme. According to the data obtained, despite developmental improvements, the students who participated in the programme showed an increase in heart rate variability and an improvement in attentional capacity, with a greater impact on the first cycle of primary school. The usefulness of heart rate variability biofeedback interventions in improving attention in primary school is discussed and arguments for their use in children are presented.

Relations Between Executive Functions and Reading Comprehension: A Study of Fourth-Grade Students with and Without Reading Comprehension Difficulties

BACKGROUND

The role of non-linguistic factors, such as executive functions, in the reading comprehension process has been analyzed. The present research sought to investigate the relationship between executive functions and reading comprehension.

METHODS

In an exploratory cross-sectional study, a group of 89 fourth-grade students were evaluated, considering a balanced number of children with and without reading comprehension difficulties.

RESULTS

The results indicate that students with reading comprehension difficulties present a lowered profile with respect to both executive functions and reading variables. The path analysis indicates the presence of differences in the variables that explain reading comprehension for both groups. While in the case of students without reading comprehension difficulties, working memory has both a direct and an indirect effect, i.e., through vocabulary, on reading comprehension; in the case of children with reading comprehension difficulties, only cognitive flexibility has a direct impact. In both cases, inhibition has an indirect impact through vocabulary.

CONCLUSIONS

We reflect on the differentiated role of executive functions according to the level of development of reading skills, highlighting the possibility that some skills may act in a compensatory manner in the presence of general difficulties. The role of vocabulary in the relationship between executive skills and reading is highlighted.

Network analysis of structural MRI predicts executive function in paediatric traumatic brain injury

INTRO

Paediatric traumatic brain injury (pTBI) is likely to result in cognitive impairment, specifically executive dysfunction. Evidence of the neuroanatomical correlates of this executive function (EF) impairment is derived from studies that treat morphometry of brain regions as distinct, independent features, rather than as a complex network of interrelationships. Morphometric similarity captures the meso-scale organisation of the cortex as the interrelatedness of multiple macro-architectural features and presents a novel tool with which to investigate the brain post pTBI.

METHODS

In a retrospective sample (83 pTBI patients, 33 controls), we estimate morphometric similarity from structural MRI by correlating morphometric features between cortical regions. We compared the meso-scale organisation of the cortex between groups then, using partial least squares regression, assessed the predictive validity of morphometric similarity in understanding later executive functioning, two years post-injury.

RESULTS

We found that patients and controls did not differ in terms of the overall magnitude of morphometric similarity. However, a pattern of ROI-level morphometric similarity was predictive of day-to-day EF difficulties reported by parents two years post-injury. This prediction was validated using a leave-one-out, and 20-fold cross-validation approach. Prediction was driven by regions of the prefrontal cortex, typically important for healthy maturation of EF skills in childhood. The meso-scale organisation of the cortex also produced more accurate predictions than any one morphometric feature (i.e. cortical thickness or folding index) alone.

CONCLUSION

We conclude that these methodologies show utility in predicting later executive functioning in this population.

Executive functions and their relationship with age: Insights from a novel neuropsychological Assessment Battery in Children-a pilot study

Executive functions (EFs) are a set of cognitive processes that enable individuals to manage and coordinate their thoughts and actions toward achieving specific goals. EFs include planning, organizing, initiating, and monitoring actions, and have been found to improve with age due to the maturation of the brain, especially during childhood. Therefore, our correlational study sought to determine the relationship between the performance in executive functions and age in 79 children (36 girls, 45.6%) throughout development, between the ages of 6 and 12 (mean = 9.25; SD = 2.05), using a battery designed in Chile: BEFE (Batería de Evaluación de las Funciones Ejecutivas: Executive Function Assessment Battery) based on traditional neuropsychological tests to evaluate Working Memory, Inhibitory Control, Cognitive Flexibility, and Planning skills. Our results showed various correlations between the variables age and performance in various behavioral parameters, demonstrating an increase in the number of correct responses (positive correlation) and/or a decrease in errors (negative correlation) with age (6-12) in the subtests that correspond to dimensions of Cognitive Flexibility (Semantic and Phonological Fluency, Card Sorting Game, and Tracing Tasks), Inhibitory Control (ENA-F and Sentence Completion), Working Memory (Audio-verbal WM Forward and Ordering, and Visuospatial WM Forward and Backward), and Planning (La Portada de Antofagasta and FISA Maps). These results are consistent with previous empirical evidence and support the notion of a developmental relationship between EF performance and age. Additionally, this study contributes to understanding EF development in culturally specific contexts, highlighting the importance of contextually relevant assessment tools in evaluating cognitive development.

Multiple object tracking training affects the executive function in basketball players: the role of instant feedback

BACKGROUND

The present study aims to investigate the potential impact of eight sessions of Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) training on the executive function in basketball players. The purpose of the study was primarily to observe the effects of MOT training with and without feedback on the executive function of basketball players.

METHODS

A sample of fifty-eight participants was selected from college students enrolled in a university basketball special selection class. The participants were divided into three equal groups. The first group received MOT training with instant feedback and was called feedback group, the second group received MOT training without instant feedback and was called no feedback group, and the third group did not receive any intervention and was called control group.

RESULTS

After eight sessions of MOT training, feedback group demonstrated the best performance in the Go/No-go task and the 3-back task. After eight sessions of MOT training, there was no significant difference in test scores on the Stroop task between the feedback and no feedback groups. There was also no significant difference in test scores between the feedback and no feedback groups on the 2-back task after eight sessions of MOT training. The findings of this study suggest that MOT training can effectively enhance the executive function of basketball players.

CONCLUSIONS

MOT training was found to enhance the executive function of basketball players, irrespective of whether they received instant feedback. However, the feedback group exhibited superior improvements in the Go/No-go task and the 3-back task.

Leisure time activities in adolescents predict problematic technology use

The problematic use of technology of children and adolescents is becoming a growing problem. Research has shown that excessive technology use predicts a variety of psychological and physical health problems. The aim of this study was to analyze the role of leisure time activities (structured and unstructured) in adolescents as a predictor of problematic technology use. Participants were 7723 adolescents, of which 55% were girls, from four Spanish-speaking countries (Chile, Spain, Mexico, and Peru) between the ages of 13 and 18 years. The evaluation instrument applied was the YOURLIFE project self-report questionnaire. Two executive functions were measured: goal setting and inhibitory control. Using structural equation modeling, findings indicated that structured leisure time activities predicted less PTU, whereas unstructured activities predicted more PTU, MLχ2 (69, N = 7723) = 806.60; CFI = 0.929, RMSEA = 0.042, and the model had good predictive capacity for PTU (R2 = 0.46). Structured and unstructured activities also showed indirect effects on PTU through executive functions. As adolescents spent more time in unstructured leisure activities, poorer goal setting, inhibitory control skills, and more PTU were found. The opposite was true for structured leisure time activities. Implications of structured leisure activities to develop executive functioning and to prevent PTU for adolescents are discussed.

Relationship between Attention Capacity and Hand-Eye Reaction Time in Adolescents between 15 and 18 Years of Age

Some experiences demonstrate a direct correlation between attention capacity and reaction capacity. However, the evidence from adolescents enrolled in the Chilean school system is scarce. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between attention capacity and hand-eye reaction time (RT) in adolescents between 15 and 18 years of age. Thirty-one adolescents participated voluntarily in this study. The variables were: attention capacity, evaluated through the Evalúa-10 battery (item 1.1), and hand-eye RT, assessed through a simple RT test (SRT) and complex RT (CRT). The relationship between the variables was performed through Pearson's correlation. Comparisons between males and females were performed with the t-test for independent samples (p ˂ 0.05). There was a moderate correlation between attention and CRT (r = -0.43), a very high correlation between attention and SRT in males (r = -0.73), and between attention and CRT in females (r = -0.73). Between males and females, there was no difference in attention (p ˃ 0.05), while males showed better RT in all tests (p ˂ 0.05). Attention positively influences hand-eye RT in both males and females. Likewise, male adolescents present better hand-eye RT than their female peers.

Structural-covariance networks identify topology-based cortical-thickness changes in children with persistent executive function impairments after traumatic brain injury

Paediatric traumatic brain injury (pTBI) results in inconsistent changes to regional morphometry of the brain across studies. Structural-covariance networks represent the degree to which the morphology (typically cortical-thickness) of cortical-regions co-varies with other regions, driven by both biological and developmental factors. Understanding how heterogeneous regional changes may influence wider cortical network organization may more appropriately capture prognostic information in terms of long term outcome following a pTBI. The current study aimed to investigate the relationships between cortical organisation as measured by structural-covariance, and long-term cognitive impairment following pTBI. T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from n = 83 pTBI patients and 33 typically developing controls underwent 3D-tissue segmentation using Freesurfer to estimate cortical-thickness across 68 cortical ROIs. Structural-covariance between regions was estimated using Pearson's correlations between cortical-thickness measures across 68 regions-of-interest (ROIs), generating a group-level 68 × 68 adjacency matrix for patients and controls. We grouped a subset of patients who underwent executive function testing at 2-years post-injury using a neuropsychological impairment (NPI) rule, defining impaired- and non-impaired subgroups. Despite finding no significant reductions in regional cortical-thickness between the control and pTBI groups, we found specific reductions in graph-level strength of the structural covariance graph only between controls and the pTBI group with executive function (EF) impairment. Node-level differences in strength for this group were primarily found in frontal regions. We also investigated whether the top n nodes in terms of effect-size of cortical-thickness reductions were nodes that had significantly greater strength in the typically developing brain than n randomly selected regions. We found that acute cortical-thickness reductions post-pTBI are loaded onto regions typically high in structural covariance. This association was found in those patients with persistent EF impairment at 2-years post-injury, but not in those for whom these abilities were spared. This study posits that the topography of post-injury cortical-thickness reductions in regions that are central to the typical structural-covariance topology of the brain, can explain which patients have poor EF at follow-up.

Emotional Intelligence and Executive Functions in the Prediction of Prosocial Behavior in High School Students. An InterDisciplinary Approach between Neuroscience and Education

One of the most analyzed variables in educational research is prosocial behavior, given its relevance and its application in favor of a culture of peace, the construction of solid democratic societies and the development of social justice. For this reason, it is necessary to extend the knowledge of predictors of prosocial behavior so that they can be transferred to teaching practice. The research reported here was carried out using a quantitative methodology through a survey, based on data collection instruments, whose data were treated statistically by means of descriptive, correlational and predictive analyses. The results obtained suggest that emotional intelligence has a strong predictive capacity for prosocial behavior while executive functions show a mild-moderate predictive behavior. In the conclusions and discussion, we provide a series of arguments on some of the results obtained in contrast with previous literature, as well as incorporating limitations of the study and prospects for future research.

Executive Functions Can Be Improved in Preschoolers Through Systematic Playing in Educational Settings: Evidence From a Longitudinal Study

This study aimed to test the impact of play on the development of executive functions (EFs) in preschoolers. Thirty-two games were designed to be collectively played in groups by 70 children, in their regular classes. The games were specifically designed to promote the development of the three components of EFs: inhibition (behavioral or cognitive), working memory, and cognitive flexibility. The games focused on each function were of three types: playground games, expression games, and classroom games. Sixty 45 min play sessions were held on consecutive days for 3 months, always in the first period. The sessions were guided by two members of the research team, assisted by the four teachers of the participating classes. The intervention was carried out in two highly socially vulnerable schools in the city of Santiago de Chile. Four classes were studied in total: two experimental groups and two controls. The classes were selected using a questionnaire on teacher-student interaction quality and an age homogeneity criterion. EFs were evaluated using the Hearts and Flowers task at three points: before the intervention (T1), immediately after the end of the intervention (T2), and 8 months after the end of the intervention (T3). The results show a significant difference in the growth of EFs by comparing the experimental and control groups (p = 0.04) between T1 and T3. They also reveal a strong correlation between EFs measures at T1 and mathematics performance at T3. These results are discussed within the context of the guidelines proposed by Diamond and Ling (2016) and Barnett (2011) regarding what an EFs promotion program needs to be considered effective and high quality. The program presented in this study meets most of the requisites mentioned by the authors, which proves that following these guidelines guarantees a high probability of success.