About this Research Topic
Executive functions (EFs) are meta-cognitive capabilities that control and coordinate mental processes implicated in many daily life activities. Although it is difficult to concisely define EFs, there is consensus that they encompass domains such as shifting of cognitive sets, inhibition, interference control, and updating of working memory content. EFs are highly polygenic, partly distinct from general intelligence, and are also associated with several health outcomes. Neuroimaging correlates of EFs include, but are not limited to, the prefrontal cortex and its connections to associated brain areas, whose neuronal development, structural integrity, and functional connectivity are of prime importance for EFs.
Cognitive symptoms in general, and impairments of EFs in particular, are important features of several psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, that significantly impair many daily activities and affect quality of life. EFs are altered in each of these disorders, as well as in a range of other clinical conditions. Since a dimensional approach has been advocated for better understanding psychiatric disorders along with distinct research domains (e.g. by the NIMH RDoC initiative), there is still a lack of evidence how higher order executive deficits more proximal to diagnostic criteria and difficulties in everyday life may be shared across psychiatric disorders or disorder subtypes, and how these impairments in EF may be mediated by underlying genetical, molecular or neuronal mechanisms.
Our Research Topic aims to compile both Review and Original Research articles that broadly address EF changes across traditional diagnostic boundaries of psychiatric disorders, in the following but not limited to the subtopics:
• Evaluation of EF deficits/changes within specific psychiatric disorders
• Comparison of EF deficits/changes across diagnostic boundaries
• Longitudinal and translational observations of EF deficits/changes
• Behavioral assessment of EF deficits/changes
• Neuroimaging correlates of EFs deficits/changes
Transdiagnostic samples are welcome, but not mandatory. Comparisons of disorder subtypes are also within the scope of this Research Topic. Neuroscientific data are highly encouraged.
Cognitive symptoms in general, and impairments of EFs in particular, are important features of several psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, that significantly impair many daily activities and affect quality of life. EFs are altered in each of these disorders, as well as in a range of other clinical conditions. Since a dimensional approach has been advocated for better understanding psychiatric disorders along with distinct research domains (e.g. by the NIMH RDoC initiative), there is still a lack of evidence how higher order executive deficits more proximal to diagnostic criteria and difficulties in everyday life may be shared across psychiatric disorders or disorder subtypes, and how these impairments in EF may be mediated by underlying genetical, molecular or neuronal mechanisms.
Our Research Topic aims to compile both Review and Original Research articles that broadly address EF changes across traditional diagnostic boundaries of psychiatric disorders, in the following but not limited to the subtopics:
• Evaluation of EF deficits/changes within specific psychiatric disorders
• Comparison of EF deficits/changes across diagnostic boundaries
• Longitudinal and translational observations of EF deficits/changes
• Behavioral assessment of EF deficits/changes
• Neuroimaging correlates of EFs deficits/changes
Transdiagnostic samples are welcome, but not mandatory. Comparisons of disorder subtypes are also within the scope of this Research Topic. Neuroscientific data are highly encouraged.
Keywords: Transdignostic Correlates of Executive Functioning, Executive functions, Psychiatric disorders
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
