Future-Oriented Cognition in PTSD

面向未来的思维在自发的心理活动中占据着突出的位置。他们服务于一个重要的 适应功能，因为它们使我们能够代表多种假设的结果，并根据这些结果采取行动。 预期的结果。虽然PTSD的核心特征是重温过去的创伤经历， 对未来威胁的预期在维持这种障碍中起着重要作用。然而，未来的想法并没有 在创伤后应激障碍中进行了系统评估。认知神经科学研究表明， 回忆过去和展望未来的过程之间的重叠。井- PTSD中自传体记忆的改变提出了一种有趣的可能性， 未来导向认知在PTSD中的作用尽管如此，因为思考未来不仅仅是一面镜子， 创伤后应激障碍的未来思维是一种回忆过去的形象，其本身就值得系统的研究。 对的 目前的建议提供了第一个全面的，理论上的分析，未来的思维， PTSD患者。该提案的第一部分评估了PTSD相关异常的范围， 模拟和评估积极和消极的未来事件，并借鉴研究的见解， 自传体记忆在创伤后应激障碍，以阐明认知机制，可能是这些 异常此外，未来思维障碍的神经基础是使用功能性的 神经成像建议的第二部分评估了未来思维改变的影响， 通过研究现在做出的决定如何受到未来结果的影响来制定决策 在跨期选择任务的背景下设想。本节提案还探讨了 改变风险评估和改变未来选择的估值对观察到的减值的贡献。的 建议的第三部分评估了通过信息增强创伤后应激障碍未来思维的可行性- 在健康个体的认知研究中，处理操作显示出对未来思维的影响。 包括本建议的研究提供了一个原则性的方法，以衡量未来减值的性质- 创伤后应激障碍中的定向认知此外，通过揭示与这些PTSD相关的机制， 异常，这一建议奠定了基础，理论上的动机的方法，以信息- 处理干预措施。考虑到未来的想法塑造我们的情绪、动机、 和行动，理解创伤后应激障碍中面向未来的思想对退伍军人的素质有广泛的影响 生命

Future-oriented thoughts occupy a prominent position in spontaneous mental activity. They serve an important adaptive function, in that they enable us to represent multiple hypothetical outcomes and act in light of those anticipated outcomes. Although a core feature of PTSD is reliving of past traumatic experiences, the anticipation of future threat plays an important role in maintenance of the disorder. Yet, future thinking has not been systematically evaluated in PTSD. Cognitive neuroscience research has shown that there is considerable overlap between the processes involved in remembering the past and envisioning the future. The well- documented alterations in autobiographical memory in PTSD raise the intriguing possibility of changes in future-oriented cognition in PTSD as well. Nonetheless, because thinking about the future is not simply a mirror image of remembering the past, the study of future thinking in PTSD merits systematic investigation in its own right. The current proposal provides the first comprehensive, theoretically motivated analysis of future thinking in individuals with PTSD. The first part of the proposal assesses the scope of PTSD-associated abnormalities in the simulation and appraisal of positive and negative future events and draws on insights from studies of autobiographical memory in PTSD to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms that may underlie these abnormalities. Further, the neural bases of impairments in future thinking are examined using functional neuroimaging. The second part of the proposal evaluates the implications of alterations in future thinking for decision making by examining how decisions made now are impacted by the way their future outcomes are envisioned in the context of an intertemporal choice task. This section of the proposal also explores the contribution of altered risk assessment and altered valuation of future choices to the observed impairment. The third part of the proposal evaluates the feasibility of enhancing future thinking in PTSD through information- processing manipulations shown to impact future thinking in studies of cognition in healthy individuals. The studies comprising this proposal provide a principled way to gauge the nature of the impairment in future- oriented cognition in PTSD. Further, by uncovering mechanisms responsible for these PTSD-associated abnormalities, this proposal lays the foundation for a theoretically motivated approach to information- processing interventions. Given the important ways in which future thought shapes our emotions, motivations, and actions, understanding future-oriented thought in PTSD has wide-range implications for Veterans' quality of life.