Let’s think about whatever we’ve done, are doing, or have to do. For example, I’m writing this article. I’m attending a conference speaker or a teacher in class. I have to go shopping before the store closes. These seem like simple things to do, but each of these actions involves a series of high-level cognitive processes that allow me to carry them out.

These processes are called executive functions , thanks to which we are able to act with a certain purpose.

Defining executive functions

Executive functions are understood to be the set of skills and cognitive processes that allow us to adapt successfully to the environment and solve problems by integrating the different information available , and to carry out behaviours of proposal thanks to them. In general, it can be considered that they are in charge of controlling and self-regulating mental activity and cognitive resources, participating in aspects such as motivation or morality as well as in information processing and behaviour control.

It is a set of skills that are not completely innate, but are acquired and developed throughout the life cycle and the development of the individual. In fact some of them do not finish maturing until around twenty-five years of age , being this something linked to brain maturation. Likewise, executive functions tend to decline as one ages, both in a normative way and if neurological problems occur.

Brain location

The brain region that has been most closely linked to these functions is in the frontal lobe. Specifically, it is a part of the frontal lobe. The prefrontal cortex is the most important part of the frontal lobe when it comes to managing this skill set.

Damages in this region will cause serious difficulties in the higher mental processes that allow the management of behaviour, as can be observed in different disorders and traumas. In addition, the development of executive functions is largely linked to the brain’s prefrontal maturation, which does not occur until adulthood.

But this does not mean that the executive functions are only due to the prefrontal cortex. After all, the information that enables processes such as planning and reasoning to take place comes largely from other brain areas. For example, structures such as the limbic system, the hippocampus, the basal ganglia or the cerebellum stand out.

What kind of functions are included?

As we have said, by executive functions we mean a set of skills and processes that are very useful for our survival and adaptation. But what are they? Some of the main and most important are the following.

1. Reasoning

Be able to use the different information and see the possible connections between them , as well as elaborate possible explanations.

2. Planning

This executive function is the one that allows us to elaborate action plans . It allows us to generate a series of steps that will lead us to a specific goal.

3. Goal setting

Linked to motivation, it is the skill that allows us to decide how to invest our energies and where to direct our behaviors.

4. Decision-making

This is the skill that allows us to determine which option to choose from the many that can be presented to us.

5. Start and end of tasks

Although it may seem strange, starting tasks at a particular time is an important cognitive activity. The same is true for the ability to determine when an action should be completed.

6. Organization

It is about the ability to bring together and structure information in an efficient and useful way.

7. Inhibition

The ability to inhibit is another of the executive functions and one of the most relevant. It is the ability that allows us to regulate our actions by stopping the behavior. It makes us capable of resisting specific impulses , stopping an action and preventing harmless information from interfering with our behaviour.

8. Monitoring

It refers to the ability to keep attention on the task and regulate what and how we are doing what we are doing.

9. Verbal and non-verbal working memory

This is the ability to store the information so that the subject can operate with it later. Both verbal and non-verbal.

10. Anticipation

This capacity allows the results of an action and/or its consequences to be foreseen in advance.

11. Flexibility

The capacity to be flexible is what allows us to change our way of acting or thinking in the face of possible environmental changes or to modify ongoing actions.

Some disorders in which they appear altered

Different disorders and lesions in the brain can cause executive functions to be impaired, leading to significant adaptation problems.

Some of the disorders with affect in this area can occur from childhood, as it happens with people with ADHD. These children present problems such as difficulties in starting a task, low capacity for inhibition and for making and following plans or problems in retaining information in the working memory.

Other disorders in which this happens are dementias, in which the neurodegenerative process causes an affectation that makes it difficult to maintain executive functions. Examples of this can be found in dementias such as that caused by Huntington’s Corea, or frontal dementias.

In any case, even without any kind of disorder the executive functions usually start to show some decline from the sixth decade of life , in a normal way.