Abstract
Cognitive and behavioural flexibility permit the appropriate adjustment of thoughts and behaviours in response to changing environmental demands. Brain mechanisms enabling flexibility have been examined using non-invasive neuroimaging and behavioural approaches in humans alongside pharmacological and lesion studies in animals. This work has identified large-scale functional brain networks encompassing lateral and orbital frontoparietal, midcingulo-insular and frontostriatal regions that support flexibility across the lifespan. Flexibility can be compromised in early-life neurodevelopmental disorders, clinical conditions that emerge during adolescence and late-life dementias. We critically evaluate evidence for the enhancement of flexibility through cognitive training, physical activity and bilingual experience.
Highlights
Abstract | Cognitive and behavioural flexibility permit the appropriate adjustment of thoughts and behaviours in response to changing environmental demands
This research domain criteria (RDoC) approach recognizes that dimensions of behaviour can cut across traditional diagnostic categories and urges the integration of multiple levels of information from genomics to neural circuits to behaviour and self-report to understand basic dimensions of functioning spanning the full range of human behaviour[16]
A study using hidden Markov models demonstrates that the proportion of time an individual spends in a brain state characterized by functional connectivity of medial frontoparietal network (M-FPN) and lateral frontoparietal network (L-FPN) regions relates to individual differences in cognitive flexibility[47]
Summary
Cognitive and behavioural flexibility fall under the broader category of executive functions, or processes necessary for the control of goal-directed behaviour[7]. Executive functions are postulated to comprise three latent variables, described as mental set-shifting (‘shifting’), information updating and monitoring in working memory (‘updating’) and inhibition of prepotent responses (‘inhibition’), that are moderately correlated with one another, yet clearly separable[7]. This framework has helped address the task impurity problem — the issue that because executive functions necessarily manifest themselves by operating on other cognitive processes, any executive task strongly implicates other processes not directly relevant to the target executive function. Box 1 | Experimental paradigms used to assess cognitive and behavioural flexibility in humans and animals
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