EXECUTIVE FUNCTION   [ back to Glossary Index ]
Executive Function refers to the broad spectrum of frontal lobe operations which include planning goals and the intermediate steps to reach them; anticipating likely rewards or punishments in response to actions under consideration;  monitoring one's own conduct in conformity with one's own goals, the responses of others and changed circumstances; learning from experience and modifying one's behavior in a flexible, adaptive fashion to accomplish one's goals; and having the capacity to complete planned tasks in a timely and efficient manner. In lay terms, executive functioning refers to the rational actions of a self-conscious person who takes into account his own rational self-interest; the future consequences of his acts; and the perceptions, feelings, values and responses of others.

Traumatic damage to the frontal lobes impairs executive functioning on a continuum from subtle to totally obvious in proportion to the severity of the injury. Criminal conduct can certainly result from frontal lobe injury, since it can make someone very  impulsive, attracted to high risk activity and relatively heedless of the legal and safety considerations which normal people consider before acting. Executive function disorder can wreck havoc in the family and the workplace and lead to divorce or job termination, and everything in between.

Examples run the gamut from grabbing the sexual parts of complete strangers, to repeatedly placing losing wagers to the point of complete impoverishment, to insulting the boss at work in front of co-workers to refusing to take high blood pressure medication necessary to prevent the next heart attack. Making the same bad moves in chess or continuing to paint the new fence white instead of green as intended, and failing to recognize and correct the error without prompting, is an example of a failure to self-regulate. Daniel Tranel, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Iowa, has done a lot of published studies into this phenomenon.

A recent study monitored brain wave activity with EEG in normal human volunteers performing timed reaction tasks, and located the capacity to monitor one's actions for error, spot the error and initiate correction in the ventro-medial pre-frontal lobes of the brain. The study found that self-monitoring goes on unconsciously until the magnitude of the error grows large enough to set off an inner alarm, which precipitates corrective action. In a person with traumatic frontal lobe damage the alarm might not go off at all, might go off way too late or might go off and be ignored. See, Journal of Neuroscience Jan. 1, 2000 Vol. 20 Issue 1 pp 464-469. Because profound pre-frontal lobe damage is dementing, about 10% of people currently diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease or schizophrenia are actually suffering from this type of brain damage, according to Dr. Bruce Miller of the UCSF Medical Center.