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. 2021 Jun 11;3(3):fcab125. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab125

Table 2.

The prefrontal cortex and executive dysfunction in ageing-related neurocognitive disorders

Group Disorder(s)/disease(s) Executive dysfunction featuresa
Prodromal syndromes Mild cognitive impairment Working memory
Alzheimer syndrome
  • Alzheimer’s dementia

  • Mixed dementias

Frontal phenotypes; working memory, cognitive flexibility (set-shifting), inhibition (self-control)
Synucleinopathies
  • Dementia with Lewy bodies

  • Parkinson’s disease

  • Multiple system atrophy

Verbal reasoning, problem-solving, ability to maintain sustained attention
Tauopathies
  • Frontotemporal dementias

  • Corticobasal degeneration

  • Progressive supranuclear palsy

Working memory, inhibition (self-control), cognitive flexibility
Vascular cognitive impairment (VCI)
  • Mild/Severe VCI

  • Vascular dementia

  • Multi-infarct dementia

  • Subcortical vascular dementia

  • Post-stroke dementia

Working memory, planning, verbal reasoning, problem-solving, ability to maintain sustained attention, resistance to interference, multitasking
Trinucleotide repeat disorders Huntington’s disease Verbal reasoning, fluency, problem solving
a

Executive function may include several other domains and it is dependent on information processing speed, which can be affected in several disorders, particularly those exhibiting disruption of the subcortical white matter.