# Developing Adaptive Coordination of Executive Functions

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2024 · $553,272

## Abstract

Abstract
Children show dramatic developments in executive functioning, the goal-directed processes that support
flexible adaptation of behavior in response to changing circumstances. Variations in executive functioning
during childhood predict important life outcomes across childhood and adolescence into adulthood, including
behavioral, health, socioemotional, and academic outcomes. Executive functions are impaired in clinical
disorders including depression, ADHD, autism and schizophrenia. Discoveries about executive functioning are
thus of fundamental importance to understanding and promoting precursors to optimal mental, behavioral, and
physical development. Given this significance, many studies and intervention attempts have focused on
understanding and supporting children’s capacity to engage executive functions. However, children adaptively
coordinate whether to engage executive functions based on a variety of factors beyond capacity. Children may
elect not to engage executive functioning because it is unlikely to pay off or to be worth the effort, or is not
valued by others around them. These choices can have cascading effects, supporting the development of
habits that make it harder (or easier) to engage executive functions in the future. Variations in executive
functioning and associated outcomes across individuals and diverse groups may reflect such adaptations. This
project thus investigates how executive functions are adaptively coordinated across development to match
environmental demands, how these adaptations can be harnessed during sensitive time periods to develop
effective interventions, and how these adaptations lead to cascading effects that are important to healthy
development. We systematically investigate these underexplored processes across three key domains relating
to executive function: A) temporal dynamics, B) delay of gratification, and C) response inhibition and mental
effort. Within each domain, we test three hypotheses: Children’s experiences, habits, and adaptations to their
unique environments shape their decisions to engage executive functioning, such that variations in executive
function can be understood in terms of matches or mismatches between demands of the current environment
and the way children have previously learned to engage executive function (Aim 1). Interventions will be
effective if they increase children’s decisions to engage executive functions and build habits around engaging
executive functions in relevant contexts (Aim 2). Children’s adaptations in their executive functioning have
cascading effects on their learning and academic achievement, challenge-seeking, problem behaviors, and
other executive functions, leading to benefits and costs and explaining links between executive function and
healthy development (Aim 3). These multi-component studies will leverage behavioral, neurophysiological, and
self- and parent-report measures to yield rich, well-powered, longitudinal datasets and advance an...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10982087
- **Project number:** 2R01HD086184-06A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** YUKO MUNAKATA
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $553,272
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2016-08-01 → 2029-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10982087

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10982087, Developing Adaptive Coordination of Executive Functions (2R01HD086184-06A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-01 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10982087. Licensed CC0.

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