Definition and research guide
This page combines a MeSH definition, publication statistics and selected research abstracts. It is a starting point for reading the literature, not a medical textbook or a systematic evidence review.
Content available: 3 complete abstracts (787 words), 9 references. Full article text is not stored or reproduced here; follow the PMID, DOI or PMC links to read the original sources and their access terms.
Definition
A set of cognitive functions that controls complex, goal-directed thought and behavior. Executive function involves multiple domains, such as concept formation, goal management, cognitive flexibility, inhibition control, and working memory. Impaired executive function is seen in a range of disorders, e.g., schizophrenia; and ADHD.
Definition: NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) scope note (Public domain (U.S. National Library of Medicine); attribution requested). View the MeSH record.
Also known as: Executive Functions; Function, Executive; Functions, Executive; Executive Control; Executive Controls.
Where it fits in the MeSH classification
- Broader topics
- Mental Processes
- See also
- Attention; Memory; Problem Solving
Related concepts
- Concept Formation
- Inhibition
- Working Memory
- Schizophrenia
Research landscape
PubMed indexes 24,951 records tagged with the MeSH heading “Executive Function” (counts retrieved 2026-10-31). 10,136 of them (40.6%) were published from 2020 onward, and the busiest period so far is 2010-2019 with 15,085 records.
Reviews account for 2,517 records (10.1%) and meta-analyses for 754. Randomized controlled trials number 1,690 (6.8%) as a share of all records on the topic.
Show the data
| Period | Records |
|---|---|
| through 1999 | 0 |
| 2000-2009 | 527 |
| 2010-2019 | 15,085 |
| 2020 onward | 10,136 |
Publication-type chart data
| Type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 2,517 | 10.1% |
| Meta-analyses | 754 | 3.0% |
| Randomized controlled trials | 1,690 | 6.8% |
Method: PubMed query "Executive Function"[MeSH Terms] with publication-type and date filters, retrieved 2026-10-31.
Reading the evidence in psychiatry and psychology
Research on mental health and behaviour relies on questionnaires, interviews and rating scales rather than physical measurements, so how a condition was defined and measured shapes every result. Many studies are observational or small, placebo responses can be large, and findings in one group or culture may not carry over to another. Nothing on this page is advice about diagnosis or treatment; anyone worried about their mental health should talk to a qualified clinician. Check how outcomes were measured, who took part and how long they were followed.
Evidence from open-access studies
These open-access studies come from PubMed’s best-match results for this heading (papers whose main topic it is), ranked here by citation count, with one recent addition. Each abstract is reproduced in full under its recorded open licence so that you can read the authors’ own words. They illustrate the literature; they are not a systematic summary of it. Citation counts measure attention, not reliability or clinical benefit.
| Study / authors | Year | Source label / design | Europe PMC citations | Licence / source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Has stopping stopped making sense? Disentangling the processes elicited by complex action cancellation paradigms | 2026 | Review article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 41957342 · DOI · PMC13615106 |
| Longitudinal profiles of executive function in autistic and non-autistic children at high likelihood of autism | 2026 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 41820855 · DOI · PMC13093929 |
| Changes in Aperiodic (1/f Slope) Activity During a Picture-Word Interference Task: Effects of Congruency and Sequence Manipulations | 2026 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 42568317 · DOI · PMC13451924 |
Has stopping stopped making sense? Disentangling the processes elicited by complex action cancellation paradigms [1]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Action cancellation represents a fundamental aspect of human motor control.
- Closing excerpt
- We propose potential ways forward, highlighting how the current lack of well-controlled comparisons between task types means the literature risks extensive task-specific findings that fail to generalise between laboratories, and-critically-beyond the laboratory.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (229 words)
Action cancellation represents a fundamental aspect of human motor control. Nonetheless, the behavioural paradigms used to study it are methodologically diverse and capture an incompletely understood combination of processes. Advancing theoretical accounts of action cancellation have motivated increasingly complicated experimental designs, leading some authors to draw comparisons between "simple" and "complex" stopping tasks. The latter describes a mix of paradigms, which variably require increased working memory demands, stimulus discrimination, distractor interference, or more complex stimulus-response mappings. This narrative review provides an accessible explanation of commonly implemented complex stopping tasks, selected based on their relevance to current theoretical debates. Throughout, we describe the challenges associated with interpreting performance in these tasks and highlight future directions for research. Notably, much of the past work using these tasks has applied traditional methods of indexing the speed of stopping, which were developed specifically for simple stopping tasks, and do not generalise well beyond this context. Recent research using cognitive modelling and physiological approaches has failed to replicate earlier findings, raising fundamental questions regarding how action cancellation should be indexed. Furthermore, physiological observations in complex stopping tasks appear to be incompatible with current accounts of the neurological mechanisms that underpin action cancellation. We propose potential ways forward, highlighting how the current lack of well-controlled comparisons between task types means the literature risks extensive task-specific findings that fail to generalise between laboratories, and-critically-beyond the laboratory.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 41957342 · DOI · PMC13615106
Longitudinal profiles of executive function in autistic and non-autistic children at high likelihood of autism [2]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- BACKGROUND: Executive functioning (EF) difficulties are common in autistic children and may aggregate in families.
- Closing excerpt
- Executive function supports starting in toddlerhood may be useful for HL children showing emerging EF difficulties.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (313 words)
BACKGROUND: Executive functioning (EF) difficulties are common in autistic children and may aggregate in families. Longitudinal studies examining EF development in autistic children and their siblings are limited. In the current study, we characterized EF development from later infancy through school-age in autistic and non-autistic high likelihood (HL; with an older autistic sibling) and low likelihood (LL; without older autistic sibling) children. METHODS: Participants were 83 autistic and 235 non-autistic HL children, and 132 LL children from the Infant Brain Imaging Study. EF was assessed at ages 12 and 24 months using the A-not-B task and ages 5–14 years (school-age) using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF), Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention Test (Flanker), and Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS). Longitudinal profiles of EF were examined using linear mixed-effects models with three separate models for each school-age EF outcome. RESULTS: From 12–24 months, the LL group showed an increase in standardized EF scores (p .05). From 24 months to school-age, no change was observed for any group (ps > .05). From 12 months to school-age, standardized scores in the LL group increased (p = 0.002) and in the HL-ASD group (p .05) but at 24-months both HL groups had lower scores than the LL group (ps < .05). At school-age, the HL-ASD group had lower standardized EF scores than the LL and HL-noASD groups on all measures (ps < or = .050), and the HL-noASD group had lower standardized scores than the LL group on the BRIEF GEC (p = .014). CONCLUSIONS: Autistic and non-autistic HL children and LL children showed distinct EF profiles. On lab-based measures, autistic and non-autistic HL children showed relatively stable EF performance over time while LL children showed initial improvements. Parent report showed accumulating EF difficulties in autistic HL children. Executive function supports starting in toddlerhood may be useful for HL children showing emerging EF difficulties.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 41820855 · DOI · PMC13093929
Changes in Aperiodic (1/f Slope) Activity During a Picture-Word Interference Task: Effects of Congruency and Sequence Manipulations [3]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Aperiodic neural activity (1/f EEG) has been proposed to reflect the balance between excitatory and inhibitory (E/I) inputs, with steeper spectral slopes reflecting increased inhibition and flatter slopes indicating excitation.
- Closing excerpt
- These results provide the first within-trial time-resolved evidence that aperiodic 1/f EEG activity can track both immediate conflict resolution and cognitive adjustments, offering a temporally sensitive neural marker of cognitive control, albeit with effects that are small in magnitude on average.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (245 words)
Aperiodic neural activity (1/f EEG) has been proposed to reflect the balance between excitatory and inhibitory (E/I) inputs, with steeper spectral slopes reflecting increased inhibition and flatter slopes indicating excitation. This activity is also thought to reflect the temporal coordination of neural firing, offering insights into fundamental brain dynamics. Recent studies have shown that the 1/f slope is sensitive to stimulus onset, characterized by initial inhibitory shifts followed by excitatory rebounds, which may reflect cognitive control mechanisms involved in suppressing distractions and preparing goal-directed responses. However, previous research has relied on fixed temporal windows and insufficient control of ERP contamination, limiting our understanding of rapid control dynamics. Here we used newly developed time-resolved analyses to study 1/f spectral slope modulation during a Picture-Word Interference task, focusing on two canonical cognitive control markers: the Congruency Effect (CE) and Congruency Sequence Effect (CSE). Forty-nine participants categorized pictures while ignoring congruent or incongruent words. Behaviorally, we replicated robust CE and CSE patterns. Spectral slope analyses showed that incongruent trials elicited steeper slopes-consistent with increased inhibition-particularly in frontal and central regions, reflecting conflict-related control engagement. Moreover, CSE analyses revealed dynamic slope modulations across frontal, central, and occipital components over time, suggesting control adjustments influenced by previous trial congruency. These results provide the first within-trial time-resolved evidence that aperiodic 1/f EEG activity can track both immediate conflict resolution and cognitive adjustments, offering a temporally sensitive neural marker of cognitive control, albeit with effects that are small in magnitude on average.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42568317 · DOI · PMC13451924
Key reviews and meta-analyses
The most cited review-type papers among PubMed’s best-match results for this heading, listed with bibliographic details only. Follow the links for the full text and access terms.
- Research article Cognitive impairment in depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis [4]
- Research article Major depressive disorder is associated with broad impairments on neuropsychological measures of executive function: a meta-analysis and review [5]
- Research article The effects of acute stress on core executive functions: A meta-analysis and comparison with cortisol [6]
- Research article Autism spectrum disorders: a meta-analysis of executive function [7]
- Research article Effects of physical activity on executive functions, attention and academic performance in preadolescent children: a meta-analysis [8]
- Research article Executive function performance in obesity and overweight individuals: A meta-analysis and review [9]
Full-text reviews on EvidenceLib
Open-access review articles about this topic, reproduced in full with authors, licence and references.
The Frontal Aslant Tract: A Systematic Review for Neurosurgical Applications
Emanuele La Corte, Daniela Eldahaby, Elena Greco et al. · Frontiers in Neurology 2021 · CC BY 4.0
References
- Weber S, Kemp SA, Hinder MR. Has stopping stopped making sense? Disentangling the processes elicited by complex action cancellation paradigms. . 2026. PMID 41957342 · DOI · PMC13615106
- St John T, Corrigan NM, Rokem A, Estes AM, Hazlett HC, Pandey J, et al.. Longitudinal profiles of executive function in autistic and non-autistic children at high likelihood of autism. . 2026. PMID 41820855 · DOI · PMC13093929
- Tronelli V, Kałamała P, Gratton G, Fabiani M, Gyurkovics M, Low KA, et al.. Changes in Aperiodic (1/f Slope) Activity During a Picture-Word Interference Task: Effects of Congruency and Sequence Manipulations. . 2026. PMID 42568317 · DOI · PMC13451924
- Rock PL, Roiser JP, Riedel WJ, Blackwell AD. Cognitive impairment in depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychol Med. 2014. PMID 24168753 · DOI
- Snyder HR. Major depressive disorder is associated with broad impairments on neuropsychological measures of executive function: a meta-analysis and review. Psychol Bull. 2013. PMID 22642228 · DOI · PMC3436964
- Shields GS, Sazma MA, Yonelinas AP. The effects of acute stress on core executive functions: A meta-analysis and comparison with cortisol. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2016. PMID 27371161 · DOI · PMC5003767
- Demetriou EA, Lampit A, Quintana DS, Naismith SL, Song YJC, Pye JE, et al.. Autism spectrum disorders: a meta-analysis of executive function. Mol Psychiatry. 2018. PMID 28439105 · DOI · PMC5984099
- de Greeff JW, Bosker RJ, Oosterlaan J, Visscher C, Hartman E. Effects of physical activity on executive functions, attention and academic performance in preadolescent children: a meta-analysis. J Sci Med Sport. 2018. PMID 29054748 · DOI
- Yang Y, Shields GS, Guo C, Liu Y. Executive function performance in obesity and overweight individuals: A meta-analysis and review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2018. PMID 29203421 · DOI
About this article
- Sources
- NLM Medical Subject Headings (definition, synonyms); NCBI PubMed (counts, identifiers); Europe PMC (open-access abstracts and citation counts).
- Verification
- Every reference was resolved against PubMed on 2026-11-04; title, year and DOI matched.
- Review state
- automated source verified; no human expert review has been recorded yet.
- Version
- 1, last updated 2026-11-04.
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Evidence strength
EvidenceHelix's computed view of the study designs behind this topic: how common meta-analyses, randomized trials and reviews are, how recent the literature is, and a plain-language reading. It describes the design mix of the literature. It is not a quality appraisal of any study, and it is not medical advice.