He doesn’t wear a suit and doesn’t look like he’s always busy.

He has quite a few wrinkles, and in fact, the more wrinkles he has, the better he works.

He always takes control of the situation, and we all depend on him when it comes to work.

He makes the decisions, evaluates options, and organizes most of the things that need to be done.

Do you know who I’m talking about yet?

The Prefrontal Lobe

The prefrontal lobe, as its name suggests, is the part of the brain that is right behind our forehead. That is, at the front of the brain. This specific region, the prefrontal, is to blame (thankfully) for us having organizational skills, monitoring, inhibition of our behavior, planning, managing emotional reactions, evaluating scenarios and alternatives…

In short, a real gem.

The prefrontal lobe is responsible for something vital to human beings functioning well: executive functions.

Many functions, very executive

Executive functions, along with attention, memory, or language, are what we call higher cognitive abilities. In general, these skills are what allow us to behave, feel, and think the way we do.

In short, a good part of the reason humans are human is due to these higher cognitive abilities.

Well, within these abilities are the executive functions. These, in turn, are a set of very diverse functions that range from task planning to inhibition and behavioral control, through cognitive flexibility, achieving our goals, adapting to the environment, or decision-making.

Thanks to executive functions, we can do things like:

-Organize our tasks

-Monitor our behavior while frying an egg, avoiding getting burned

-Ignore the popup ad that opens in our browser when we enter some websites

-Switch to another restaurant if our favorite one is closed

-Plan those ideal summer vacations

-Anticipate that if we’re going to the beach, we’ll need flip-flops, sunscreen, several swimsuits for the whole vacation…

That’s why we say the prefrontal lobe is the CEO of our brain, as it plans, anticipates, coordinates, decides, and manages what we do with our lives.

When there’s an orchestra, but no conductor

Have you ever considered what happens if the prefrontal cortex fails? Or if there is an injury in that area.

Or if for various reasons, such as chronic stress, it is affected.

A person with an impairment in executive functions due to a problem in this part of the brain can exhibit numerous problems and difficulties. Some of them may include:

• Not being able to plan the steps of a task, such as doing a job. Therefore, they will have many difficulties in organizing that project and starting it.
• Perseveration errors, which translate as making the same mistake over and over. For example, imagine putting the accelerator and clutch pedals in the wrong place. If there is a perseveration error, it’s probably impossible to start the car as they would make the same mistake over and over again.
• Behavioral disinhibition: this is perhaps one of the most striking since they can have erratic behaviors such as shouting in a supermarket, engaging in sexual behavior in public, or saying obscenities to strangers.
• Problems with self-control which can be reflected as anger outbursts or exaggerated hostility reactions.

And a long (but very long) etcetera.

Do you now understand why this part of the brain is the best CEO of all?