Abstract: The relationship between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and executive function was reviewed in this paper. It was indicated that ACC could act as a monitoring system in the executive function. ACC could monitor the ongoing goal-oriented behavior and signal the response conflict and error occurrence, so that the attention resource could be in time modulated and allocated. ACC might be one of the higher modulating components for planning and executive behavior. New findings in recent two years suggest that ACC’s monitoring function could be involved not only in the integrated control on “willed action” based on motivation and reward expectancy, but also in emotional evaluation on the consequences of actions.

Key words: anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), executive function, conflict and error monitoring, motivational or emotional evaluation