Cognitive Functions Linked to Frontal Lobe

描述（由申请人提供）：这是一个更大的奋进的一部分，其目的是系统地调查执行控制功能，研究他们的发展，神经基础，以及从婴儿到老年的遗传和神经化学调节。这里的重点是在早期发展过程中的注意力抑制，行动抑制和认知灵活性。本研究假设：（1）3-10岁儿童的错误反映了灵活转换的问题。即使是3岁的孩子也能成功地完成稳态注意力抑制（选择性注意）和稳态动作抑制（抑制旧的刺激-反应映射）。然而，在孩子们第一次表现出稳定状态的抑制和他们能够来回转换之间，会发现长达3-6年的滞后。(2)这种进步并不依赖于记忆力的提高;即使是年龄较小的孩子也能够在每次试验中说出正确的规则。然而，这确实取决于执行将抽象规则转化为实践所需的心理计算能力的提高。执行控制功能发展的核心问题是灵活转换心理设置和灵活操纵头脑中信息的能力，而不是抑制或记忆本身。(3)婴儿和学龄前儿童所犯的许多错误反映了他们很难理解两个事物在概念上是联系的，如果它们没有物理上的联系（例如，不是同一实体的一部分），另一方面，难以理解单个实体的属性可以被分离，并且从不同的角度在概念上重新描述该实体。因此，虽然转换注意力焦点和反应映射是困难的，但当刺激维度分开时，儿童将在很小的时候就成功地进行这种转换。这项拟议中的研究将测试这些假设和其他假设，绘制出生命早期抑制控制和认知灵活性的发展。这将提供宝贵的见解，了解为什么儿童有困难，优化其表现的条件，以及评估儿童发展或缺陷的基准。对执行控制功能的更精确理解将有助于理解这些功能在注意缺陷多动障碍、强迫症、精神分裂症、成瘾和自闭症等疾病中的差异影响。深入了解儿童成功的条件可能会产生一些程序，这些程序可能会对那些患有影响这些关键功能的疾病的人有所帮助。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is part of a larger endeavor whose aim is to systematically investigate executive control functions, studying their development, neural bases, and genetic & neurochemical modulation from infancy through old age. The focus here is on inhibition of attention, inhibition of action, and cognitive flexibility during early development. It is hypothesized that: (1) Errors made by children of 3-10 years reflect problems with flexibly switching. Even 3-year-olds will succeed at steady-state attentional inhibition (selective attention) and steady-state action inhibition (inhibition of old stimulus-response mappings). Lags of up to 3-6 years will be found, however, between when children can first show inhibition in steady-state and when they can switch back and forth. (2) This progression does not depend on improved memory; even the younger children will be able to state the correct rule on each trial. It does depend, though, on improvements in the ability to execute the mental computations necessary to translate abstract rules into practice. The core problems in the development of executive control functions are the abilities to flexibly switch mental settings and to flexibly manipulate information in one's mind, not inhibition or memory per se. (3) Many of the errors made by infants and preschoolers reflect difficulty in grasping that two things are conceptually connected if they are not physically connected (e.g., not part of the same entity), and the flip side, difficulty grasping that attributes of a single entity can be separated and the entity conceptually redescribed from different perspectives. Thus, while switching attentional focus and response mappings is difficult, when the stimulus dimensions are separated, children will succeed at such switching at a very young age. The proposed research will test these and other hypotheses, charting the development of inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in the early years of life. This will provide valuable insights into why children have difficulties, conditions for optimizing their performance, and benchmarks by which to assess children's development or deficits. A more refined understanding of executive control functions will assist efforts to understand how these are differentially affected in disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, schizophrenia, addictions, and autism. Insights into the conditions under which children can succeed may yield procedures that might prove helpful to those afflicted with disorders affecting these critical functions.