## 1 Introduction  
Executive functions (EFs) are critical cognitive abilities that underpin tasks such as maintaining focus, orchestrating plans, making decisions, regulating impulses, and managing behavior. These functions are essential for filtering out distractions, assimilating new information, adjusting plans when necessary, sustaining prolonged effort, deferring immediate rewards, and inhibiting impulsive actions [1]. When executive dysfunction (ED) occurs, it can impair self-regulation, coping strategies, anger management, task sequencing,short-term memory retention, efficient time management, task initiation, and multitasking skills, often leading to academic challenges and worsening people's quality of life and well-being [2; 3; 4]. Identifying and treating ED in early adolescence can improve mental health, enhance academic outcomes, and promote better social integration. However, without sufficient awareness, educators may misinterpret students' behaviors as mere lack of interest or effort [5]. Emotional regulation (ER) is another critical process during adolescence that enables young people to identify and manage emotions, understand the relationship between emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, and develop strategies to tolerate frustration and generate positive emotions [6; 7]. Emotional dysregulation includes difficulty accepting and controlling emotional responses, suppression of emotions and ruminative thoughts, and a lack of emotional clarity and awareness [8]. Adolescence is a critical period for ER challenges as individuals apply strategies learned in childhood. Adolescents with emotional dysregulation may face difficulties in identity formation and, later in adulthood, in interpersonal relationships and emotional management [9]. ER difficulties have also been associated with internalizing symptoms such as anxiety (i.e., excessive, disproportionate, and anticipatory fear) and depression (i.e., sadness, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities), the most common mental health problems in adolescents [10; 11; 12]. Some studies have shown that emotional dysregulation may mediate the onset of this internalizing symptomatology [13], which has a strong comorbidity with suicidal ideation in adolescents [14]. These mental health problems and emotional dysregulation often co-occur with impairments in EFs, such as working memory and inhibitory control, because low cognitive control could limit ER and high emotionality could impair cognitive functioning [15; 16]. In this sense, ER and internalizing symptoms can also be targeted by cognitive interventions such as VR cognitive training. The interaction between emotions and cognitive processes plays a key role in ER. This includes how we process information, control ourselves, and remain flexible in our thinking--all of which are components of EFs [17]. The impact of executive performance in adolescents has been studied in different countries and cultural contexts, although most studies have been conducted in the United States and Europe [18]. Previous research has found that people who are better at EFs tend to use more effective strategies to manage their emotions [19; 20; 21; 22]. Therefore, training in EFs can increase brain plasticity (i.e., the brain's ability to adapt and change) and strengthen connections between different brain areas, such as those in the prefrontal cortex (responsible for higher-level thinking) and subcortical regions (involved in basic emotions and needs) [23]. This allows individuals to gain more conscious control over automatic, involuntary responses such as emotions, desires, and basic needs [24]. While most research has focused on clinical populations (such as people with neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, or mental health disorders), these training programs have also shown promising results in healthy, non-clinical populations [25]. The relationship between EFs and ER is based on the dual-process framework, which suggests that ER strategies can depend on either implicit or explicit processes.