Research has examined the impact of poor sleep on executive control and related abilities, but the inverse relationship has received less attention. Youth completed objective executive control tasks in childhood ( = 208; = 10.03; 50.5% girls) and self-report measures of sleep-wake problems and daytime sleepiness in early adolescence ( = 12.00). Poorer interference suppression and flexible shifting abilities both predicted sleep-wake problems, but response inhibition and working memory did not. For daytime sleepiness, interference suppression was the only significant predictor among executive control components. Socioeconomic status did not moderate any of these associations. Findings have implications for targeting specific executive control abilities in childhood to improve sleep outcomes later in development.
Purpose: Young adults report challenges concerning cancer--related cognitive impairment (CRCI). This study aimed to: (1) describe cognition in young adults post-cancer treatment using self-report and performance-based measures, and (2) examine associations between cognition and relevant disease-related, psychological, and lifestyle (physical activity; PA) factors.
Background: Children born very preterm (VPT; <32 weeks) are at increased risk of executive functioning (EF) difficulties. But less is known about the nature and extent of these executive difficulties during late adolescence, particularly across multiple EF domains and in response to varying degrees of executive demand.
Methods: Using data from a prospective longitudinal study, this paper describes the EF profiles of 92 VPT and 68 full-term (FT) adolescents at age 17 years.
This paper presents a general model of the cognitive processes involved in each play situation of soccer at the elite level. Theoretically the model draws on general frameworks from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, in particular the affordance competition hypothesis and the reward prediction error theory. The model includes three functional stages: situational assessment, action selection and execution, and outcome assessment.
Decades of research on joint attention, coordinated joint engagement, and social contingency identify caregiver-child interaction in infancy as a foundation for language. These patterns of early behavioral synchrony contribute to the structure and connectivity of the brain in the temporoparietal regions typically associated with language skills. Thus, children attune to their communication partner and subsequently build cognitive skills directly relating to comprehension and production of language, literacy skills, and beyond.
The human cortical inhibitory system is known to play a vital role for normal brain development, function, and plasticity. GABA is the most prominent inhibitory neurotransmitter in the CNS and is a key regulator not only for motor control and motor learning, but also for cognitive processes. With ageing and many neurodegenerative pathologies, a decline in GABAergic function in several cortical regions together with a reduced ability to task-specifically modulate and increase inhibition in the primary motor cortex has been observed.
