Future-Oriented Cognition in PTSD

面向未来的思维在自发的心理活动中占有突出的地位。他们的服务是一项重要的 适应性功能，因为它们使我们能够表示多个假设结果并根据这些结果采取行动 预期的结果。尽管创伤后应激障碍的一个核心特征是重温过去的创伤经历，但 对未来威胁的预测在维持这种混乱中起着重要作用。然而，未来的思维并不是这样 在创伤后应激障碍中进行了系统的评估。认知神经科学的研究表明，有相当大的 回忆过去和展望未来的过程之间存在重叠。这口井- 记录在案的创伤后应激障碍患者自传体记忆的改变增加了有趣的可能性 在创伤后应激障碍中也有面向未来的认知。尽管如此，因为思考未来不只是一面镜子 回忆过去的形象，创伤后应激障碍的未来思维研究本身就值得系统研究 正确的。 目前的建议提供了第一个全面的，理论上有动机的分析未来思维在 患有创伤后应激障碍的个人。提案的第一部分评估了创伤后应激障碍相关异常的范围。 对积极和消极的未来事件的模拟和评估，并借鉴了对 自传体记忆在创伤后应激障碍中的作用 异常现象。此外，还使用泛函检验了未来思维中损伤的神经基础。 神经成像。提案的第二部分评估了未来思维变化的影响 通过检查现在所做的决策如何受到其未来结果的影响来进行决策 在跨期选择任务的背景下设想。提案的这一部分还探讨了 改变的风险评估和未来选择的改变的估值对观察到的减值的贡献。这个 建议的第三部分评估了通过信息加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，加工操作被证明会影响未来的思维。 组成这项建议的研究提供了一个原则性的方法，以衡量未来减损的性质- 创伤后应激障碍的定向认知。此外，通过揭示这些与创伤后应激障碍相关的机制 反常，这项建议为理论上有动机的信息处理方法奠定了基础- 处理干预措施。考虑到未来思想塑造我们情绪、动机的重要方式， 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质量有广泛的影响 生活的一部分。

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.