Patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Show Decreased Cognitive Control
Members of the BCLG examined the influence of PTSD on cognitive control and auditory attention with a dichotic istening task. The main finding was impaired cognitive control that was partly explained by signs of intrusive memories.
Main content
The paper, which is published by the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (JINS, 2011, 17, 1-10; DOI 10.1017/S1355617710001736), represents one of a series of studies on cognitive impairments associated with PTSD. The main conclusion is that such impairments are not limited to problems with聽trauma related material, but聽the functional impairments聽can also be聽generalized to cognitive functioning as it is assessed聽with standardized tasks.
The present聽study examined PTSD in civilians exposed to war and political violence.聽As the聽majority of the reported studies on PTSD have聽been conducted on military personnel or other groups聽trained for possible traumatic experiences, or women exposed to sexual assault, studies on the normal population exposed to different traumatic events are important to fully understand the consequences of trauma exposure and the implications for treatment.