Using developmental cognitive neuroscience to study behavioral and attentional control

Abstract

Adult cognitive neuroscience employs a wide variety of techniques to investigate a broad range of behavioral and cognitive functions. One prominent area of study is that of executive control, complemented by a smaller but growing literature exploring the developmental cognitive neuroscience of executive control. To date this approach has often compared children with specific developmental disorders, such as ADHD and ASD, with typically developing controls. Whilst these comparisons have done much to advance our understanding of the neural markers that underpin behavioral difficulties at specific time-points in development, we contend that they should leave developmental cognitive neuroscientists wanting. Studying the neural correlates of typical changes in executive control in their own right can reveal how different neural mechanisms characteristic of the adult end-state emerge, and it can therefore inform the adult cognitive neuroscience of executive control itself. The current review addresses the extent to which developmentalists and adult cognitive neuroscientists have tapped this common ground. Some very elegant investigations illustrate how seemingly common processes in adulthood present as separable in childhood, on the basis of their distinctive developmental trajectories. These demonstrations have implications not only for an understanding of changing behavior from infancy through childhood and adolescence into adulthood, but, moreover, for our grasp of the adult end-state per se. We contend that, if used appropriately, developmental cognitive neuroscience could enable us to construct a more mechanistic account of executive control.

Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders

“…Yet, others report decreases in PFC responses with age [8,44,45] or interesting non-linear patterns – less or more activity in adolescence than either adulthood or childhood [25,52,53]. Overall, the literature on neurodevelopmental underpinnings of cognitive control shows bidirectional, complex patterns – both increases and decreases in PFC activations that vary across subregions and tasks – that should be interpreted with caution [8,54-56]. For example, a recent study examining inhibitory control in an antisaccade task found that transient activations in PFC related to inhibitory control during a given saccade decrease with age, whereas sustained set-related activations in PFC increase [6].…”

Developmental Differences in the Control of Action Selection by Social Information

“…This dissociation has been related to a distinction between mentalizing judgments made toward the self or similar others versus on dissimilar others (Tamir & Mitchell, 2010;Van Overwalle, 2009;Jenkins, Macrae, & Mitchell, 2008;Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006). The developmental cognitive control literature has shown less consistent findings, with studies showing both decreases and increases in lateral PFC activations as well as qualitative changes with age during adolescence (see Crone & Ridderinkhof, 2010;Luna et al, 2010;Astle & Scerif, 2009;Casey, Jones, & Hare, 2008;Bunge & Wright, 2007).…”

Neurocognitive Growth Charting in Psychosis Spectrum Youths

“…[16][17][18] We have implemented a computerized neurocognitive battery (CNB) 19 in large-scale studies, [20][21][22][23] measuring performance in executive, episodic memory, complex cognition, social cognition, and sensorimotor speed domains. Deficits prominent in schizophrenia are heritable and are milder in unaffected family members.…”