Opinion: What happens when a chief executive loses executive functions?

Circa 1970, the renowned Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria together with Karl Pribram from Stanford University and other neuroscientists of that era introduced the term “executive functions” into the scientific lexicon to denote complex behaviors such as attention and awareness. They identified the frontal lobe — the front of the brain — as the “executive of the brain” responsible for these behaviors based on their experiments with primates and patients with specific brain injuries. Over time, the concept evolved to include mental processes needed to focus, concentrate, and pay attention when challenged by multiple simultaneous sources of information to weigh options and make informed decisions as opposed to impulsive ones. Read the rest…