Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function

Send us Fan Mail Would you be willing to head-butt a ram for an icy cold bottle of Mountain Dew? That’s the kind of lighthearted foolery that got a lot of laughs during a Super Bowl commercial one year. At the end, we see the young man sipping from the winning drink, but you’re not quite sure if he is okay because you can hear a stutter in his speech as he staggers away in a disoriented haze. Even...

Send us Fan Mail In NBC’s award winning series, This is Us, Mandy Moore’s character Becca, a new mother of three, leaves the house for the first time after the childbirth to buy groceries so that she can make something special for her husband, Jack. Ordinarily, Becca plays by the book and goes with the flow but an encounter where another shopper grabs the last bag of yellow onions that Becca wante...

Send us Fan Mail What’s the difference between blowing bubbles in the yard, watching a drunk shovel snow in a shopping cart, and listening to Rodney Dangerfield deliver a monologue? The first one is fun, the second one is funny, but only Rodney Dangerfield’s one-liners makes you laugh every time. It takes Executive Function skills such as adapting off-stage comedic talent to the stand-up comedy en...

Send us Fan Mail Taking care of children by feeding them, protecting them, and loving them is not the same as preparing them for their future. American education has been through an evolutionary process; which is just a few centuries old and the quest is yet to be fulfilled. We forget, a century ago, attending school past age 12 was not mandatory, the classrooms were often filled with 50-60 kids o...

Send us Fan Mail If you’re trying to bum a cigarette from someone outside a bar after midnight be prepared for them to say no. Talented actor, Shia Lebeouf, wasn’t prepared. Ironically, he who has painstakingly portrayed Tennis’ tempestuous bad-boy, John McEnroe, in “Borg vs McEnroe,” himself has been arrested one time too many for emotional volatility, impulsivity, and disorderly conduct. Not eve...

Send us Fan Mail The creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, once described Homer Simpson as “a loving father but he’s ruled by his impulses”.  Homer often comes across more of a juvenile adult than a parent; never quite equipped to handle Bart’s bratty behaviors or Lisa’s intellectual curiosity. In spite of being endowed, the virtuous, talented, and sensitive middle child Lisa is often ignored in...

Send us Fan Mail When, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” hit the bookstores in 1984, authors Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel had no idea that their book would become a bible for expectant parents and it would top the Best Seller’s list for years to come. Even though the parents’ search to figure out the mysteries of parenting does not dwindle once the baby is born; it surely gets complicated a...

Send us Fan Mail The end of the year inventory often reveals a track record of failed diets, disorganization, and an ever-so thinning bank balance which is why a recent poll suggested that "lose weight," "get organized," and "spend less money" are the top 3 New Year’s resolutions. To change your ways upon self-reflection you need strong Executive Function skills. It’s...

Send us Fan Mail “In order to avoid buying those unnecessary items, don't go shopping at those stores.” Says a financial adviser Michael Markey. But anyone who is not a stranger to temptations knows that it takes a lot to resist the holiday shopping season, starting with Black Friday to Cyber Monday and until the day-before Christmas eve, the online as well as brick and mortar retailers craft...

Send us Fan Mail What does a fatal plane crash by a veteran pilot and a patient death from a wrongful dosage by an expert nurse have in common? They both might have been interrupted in the middle of critical procedures and may not have remembered to come back to where they left off. While processing information in working memory, your attention acts like a 360° searchlight and whatever it happens...

Send us Fan Mail If life was a play, some activities would be the star of show and others would be just ‘extras’. The mind is often full of thoughts about the upcoming main act while plowing through the mundane, such as unloading the dishwasher, taking out the garbage or rescheduling a doctor’s appointment. But no matter what the task is we are always deploying Working Memory. Working Memory is th...

Send us Fan Mail Fame and success is not necessarily an antidote to self-doubt. Oscar-winning singer-songwriter, Sam Smith, once said, “I still doubt myself as a singer every day. Every time I step off the stage, I have ask someone what it was like. ...I really think I need to work on it.” The young performer’s life has seen some ups and downs, such as losing anonymity and putting his foot in his...

Send us Fan Mail Jung-ah Choi writes that during a parent-teacher conference she discovered that her son was misbehaving in his kindergartner class. Upon further inquiry it turned out that her son was having a hard time complying with the class rule about not invading other people’s personal space. The teacher called it the “do-not-pop-the-bubble” policy. Choi’s son did not know how best to achiev...

Send us Fan Mail At age 6, his mother said to him, “Why don't you just kill yourself? You’re such a burden to me.” At age 9, his mother drove him away from home to the unfamiliar part of Baja, California and walked him into an orphanage saying that she found this orphan kid and left him there for 90 days before his grandmother got a hold of him and brought him back. Throughout his elementary...

Send us Fan Mail In 1885, William Bentley placed a snowflake under his camera lens and took a first-of-its-kind photo only to then spend the next 50 years of his life capturing snowflakes with these incredible, vibrant designs. Apparently, the crystal of a snowflake starts as a tiny spec of dust or even pollen that attracts water vapor to form a preliminary hexagon called "diamond dust."...

Send us Fan Mail The Google search for “how to teach a child to tie shoes” comes up with approximately 7.5 million hits. Obviously, parents and adults in general have recognized that folding over the shoelaces, crossing the bunny ears, and looping them to tie a knot needs to be taught with great care. However, you walk into any hallway in elementary, middle, or high school and two distinct trends...

Send us Fan Mail People like Dr. Mae C. Jemison live by the dictum, “if you're bored, you are not paying attention.” That philosophy has served her well as she is a former NASA astronaut and the first woman of color in the world to go to space. She could pay attention and direct her curiosity in whichever direction she wanted. Dr. Jemison got work done and kept on achieving. This was not the...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever tried to point out mistakes in someone – maybe in your child, spouse, employee, or even your boss? And what do you get? A sharp rebuttal or a strong push back. Peace comes to those whose self-concept and behaviors are in harmony with each other. If not, the result is cognitive dissonance. When you do something wrong, your brain is wired to try and relieve the tension...

Send us Fan Mail Your 20-something-year-old son decides to buy a car without your help and you come to find out that he got ripped off. He tells you the story of what happened and you cannot believe it. Apparently, your son agreed to buy a car off Craigslist, gave your home address to a stranger, and thought nothing of the request to pay in cash, even when the seller showed up with a car that look...

Send us Fan Mail On a daily basis we direct our attention, guide our instincts, and move from making micro to macro decisions feeling that we are fully in control of our inner machinery called the brain. While exploring the nature and development of Executive Function skills and its impact on learning and self-awareness, one can’t help but notice that many of us are unaware of ‘why we do what we d...

Send us Fan Mail Pre-teen years are a breeding ground for pimples, mood swings, eye-rolls, and social awkwardness. But that’s not the only stuff these kids have to adjust to. There is a remarkable shift in academic demands that’s far out and equally daunting. During the Middle School years, kids have to actually learn how to study for tests, independently write papers by elaborating on ideas, and...

Send us Fan Mail If not properly handled, some projects can spiral out of control like a runaway train. Assignments involving project-based learning professes that children learn best when they experience the real-world problems and solve them on their own. In one of the elementary schools I had worked with, students were spotted to rush in with awkwardly large homemade robots as part of their 4th...

Send us Fan Mail What do a sponge, a needle, or a drill bit fragment have in common? Well these are the most common but harmful things that a surgeon can leave inside you that don't belong there. Remembering to retrieve things out of patient’s cavity before suturing the patient up requires prospective memory – remembering to remember. It's the most critical Executive Function process ess...

Send us Fan Mail Elephants never forget! But I guess we do. Forgetting to drop off dry cleaning, book a hotel or register for a class on time can cause disruption if not devastation. Everyday we make plans to do things in the future. We have great intentions and a confident mental state that makes us believe that all of our plans will materialize; however, often our failed memories surprise us. Li...

Send us Fan Mail However creative we might be, the human blind spot disallows us from imagining ourselves vividly in the distant future. Neuroscience says we are far better at constructing our past from memory as compared to projecting ourselves as a distant future-self. For example, in theory, posting 100,000 post-it notes all over the high school as a senior prank sounds creative and harmless, r...