Future-Oriented Cognition in PTSD

面向未来的思想在自发的心理活动中占据着突出的地位。他们服务于一个重要的 适应性功能，因为它们使我们能够代表多种假设结果并根据这些结果采取行动 预期结果。尽管 PTSD 的一个核心特征是重温过去的创伤经历， 对未来威胁的预期在疾病的维持中起着重要作用。然而，未来的思维还没有 在 PTSD 中进行了系统评估。认知神经科学研究表明，有相当多的 记住过去和展望未来的过程之间存在重叠。井- 记录在案的 PTSD 患者自传体记忆的改变提出了有趣的可能性： 创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）中的面向未来的认知也是如此。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（PTSD）中未来思维的研究本身就值得系统研究 对。 当前的提案提供了对未来思维的第一个全面的、有理论依据的分析。 患有创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）的人。该提案的第一部分评估了 PTSD 相关异常的范围 对未来积极和消极事件的模拟和评估，并借鉴以下研究的见解 PTSD 中的自传体记忆，以阐明这些可能背后的认知机制 异常。此外，使用功能性方法检查未来思维障碍的神经基础 神经影像学。该提案的第二部分评估了未来思维改变的影响 通过检查现在做出的决策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的。该提案的这一部分还探讨了 改变的风险评估和改变的未来选择估值对观察到的损害的贡献。的 该提案的第三部分评估了通过信息增强 PTSD 未来思维的可行性 在健康个体的认知研究中，处理操作被证明会影响未来的思维。 包含本提案的研究提供了一种原则性方法来衡量未来减值的性质： PTSD 中的定向认知。此外，通过揭示这些与 PTSD 相关的机制 异常，该提案为理论上的信息方法奠定了基础- 处理干预。鉴于未来思想塑造我们的情感、动机的重要方式， 和行动，了解创伤后应激障碍中面向未来的思想对退伍军人的素质具有广泛的影响 的生活。

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.