Inhibit, switch, and update: A within-subject fMRI investigation of executive control

Contributions of Brain Function and Structure to Three Different Domains of Cognitive Control in Normal Aging

“…Our finding is somewhat at odds with recent work that found no workingmemory-specific patterns of functional activity using a datadriven approach (Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019), leading researchers to conclude that, when cognitive demands are similar across domains, working memory may not have unique contributions beyond superordinate cognitive control processes. The fronto-parietal regions in which we found working-memory-specific increases largely overlapped with our common cognitive control regions (plus a unique right prefrontal region)-therefore, in addition to subserving general cognitive control, these fronto-parietal regions show enhanced engagement during working memory, suggesting that updating and maintaining processes may be involved in many aspects of cognitive control, generally in line with previous conclusions (Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019;Spreng et al, 2017).…”

“…A prior meta-analysis examining the conjunction of functional activity for inhibition, shifting (termed "flexibility"), and working memory identified an identical set of regions as the current work, illustrating that the common effect of cognitive control for these three domains is robust, regardless of specific fMRI task or stimuli (Niendam et al, 2012). Furthermore, the few previous within-participant neuroimaging experiments that included all three domains report consistent activation of fronto-parietal cortex across domains (Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019;Derrfuss et al, 2004), with some additional domain-common activation in regions not found in the current study nor in the Niendam et al (2012) metaanalysis (i.e., thalamus: Derrfuss et al, 2004; right middle/inferior temporal gyrus: Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019).…”

“…Greater midline default activity during inhibition could reflect relative differences in the difficulty of our chosen fMRI tasks (i.e., go/no-go mean accuracy of 98.2% vs. 1-and 2-back mean accuracy of 86.0%), as medial default regions have been found to show greater activity during easy task conditions that is suppressed as task demands and difficulty increase Leech, Kamourieh, Beckmann, & Sharp, 2011;Persson, Lustig, Nelson, & Reuter-Lorenz, 2007). Contrary to prior studies that report the right inferior frontal gyrus as a core region of inhibitory processing (Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019;Aron, Robbins, & Poldrack, 2004), we did not find unique inhibitory activity in this region that surpassed the common effect across domains, suggesting that the right inferior frontal gyrus may subserve broader cognitive control processes that are only evident when examining multiple domains of control together. Similar to our findings, a previous study contrasting functional activity during inhibition and working memory (across multiple tasks) also failed to isolate inhibition-specific activity in right inferior frontal gyrus that surpassed activity common to both domains (McNab et al, 2008).…”

“…Specifically, a meta-analysis of fMRI tasks that assessed inhibition, shifting/flexibility, and working memory found common activity in dorsolateral pFC, cingulate regions, and inferior and superior parietal lobes, suggesting that these fronto-parietal regions comprise a superordinate cognitive control network that may subserve many different components of control (Niendam et al, 2012). The few studies that have compared functional activity for two domains (McNab et al, 2008;Sylvester et al, 2003) or across all three domains (Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019;Derrfuss, Brass, & von Cramon, 2004) within the same sample provide some additional evidence for domain-specific functional activity both within and outside fronto-parietal regions. However, these previous studies included relatively small sample sizes (11-22 participants) consisting of only healthy younger adults; therefore, it is still unclear how functional activity for each domain might be expressed when cognitive control processes are reduced, as is found in aging.…”

Latent variable evidence on the interplay between language switching frequency and executive control in Spanish-Catalan bilinguals

“…For example, the inferior frontal gyrus belonging to the frontal lobe has been neuroanatomically related to both inhibition and switching (Brass et al, 2005), but also to language control (Coderre et al, 2016; de Bruin et al, 2014). In addition, the supramarginal gyrus in the parietal lobe has been shown to be engaged in both the switching subcomponent of EC (Lemire-Rodger et al, 2019) and language switching (Abutalebi & Green, 2008; Reverberi et al, 2018). Moreover, the caudate nucleus, a subcortical region, seems to contribute to the executive inhibitory and switching performance (Heyder et al, 2004), while participating in language switching as well (Hervais-Adelman et al, 2015).…”