Correlations between executive function, decision-making and impulsivity are disrupted in schizophrenia versus controls

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California
Attention, working-memory, planning, impulse control, inhibition, and mental flexibility are important components of human cognition that are often referred to as executive functions. Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder that is characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviors. It is a disorder that lasts a lifetime, and is thought to...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California
Decision-making is an important component of human executive function, in which a choice about a course of action or cognition is made from many possibilities. Damage to the inferior parts of the frontal lobes can affect a person's ability to make good decisions. However, while decision-making deficits can have a large impact on one's life, these deficits can be difficult to quantify in the...

Source: Laboratories of Nicholaus Noles and Judith Danovitch—University of Louisville
Infants are born with amazing cognitive resources at their disposal, but they don’t know how to use them effectively. In order to harness the power of their brains, humans must develop high-level cognitive processes that manage basic brain functions. These processes make up what psychologists refer to as executive function. Executive function is a key factor in many self-regulatory behaviors,...

This experiment uses an anatomically-constrained magnetoencephalography (aMEG) method to examine brain oscillatory dynamics and long-range functional synchrony during engagement of cognitive control as a function of acute alcohol...

Molecular genetic strategy for finding de novo mutations causing common disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia, a term introduced by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1911, describes a severe psychological disorder marked by profound disruptions in attention, thought processes, language, emotion, and interpersonal relationships. The core feature of schizophrenia is psychosis — a state characterized by a fundamental detachment from reality. This disconnection manifests through distorted logic, impaired perception, and atypical behavior, severely affecting the lives of those...