Emotional working memory capacity in posttraumatic stress disorder

(PTSD)

Susanne Schweizer, Tim Dalgleish*

Behaviour Research and TherapyImpact Factor: 2.957

Behaviour Research and Therapy

The focus is on the following: theoretical and experimental analyses of psychopathological processes with direct implications for prevention and treatment……

Outline

Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion

Abstract

WMC 與 PTSD 、 depressive 、 anxiety disorders

eWMC 的操弄

運用在臨床治療的成效

未來可以發展的方向

Introduction

影響 PTSD 患者的因素

Emotionally-laden thoughts

Intrusive thought

“Hot” and “Cold” psychology --------Heath A. Demaree

People differ with regard to how well they can control their emotions, and one factor that predicts it is non-emotional in nature – it is a ‘cold’ cognitive construct

“Hot” psychology---------emotional psychology

Working memory capacity ---------------- 保有短暫訊息的能力

WMC(working memory capacity) 的重要性Define對於 PTSD 的影響 ? For example, a woman suffering from posttraumatic stress

who………… 如何操弄 ?WMC eWMCRegulate expressive and experiential

aspects of emotion.

選用有長期 PTSD 病史的受試者 ?

Show substantive and significant biases on a wide range of cognitive measures indexing difficulties in processing trauma-related material

problem with proactive interference

Maladaptive intrusivetrauma-related appraisals

Risk of PTSD reactivation

Central study hypothesis

Trauma survivors with a lifetime history of PTSD would show impaired WMC on our novel emotional reading span task when the operation component (the sentences) was PTSD-related, compared with a control sample of trauma survivors who had never had PTSD, and relative to their performance with neutral control sentences as the operation component.

Methods

Methods

Participants(aged 17 to 65 years)

(PTSD 　 LT; n ＝ 25) and （ PTSD 　 C; n＝ 14）

(Controls; n ＝ 21)

Measures The Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI; Foa et al.,1999) The emotional working memory capacity (eWMC) task. EX.“I often carpet feel like a meaningless object not a person”

Emotional working memory capacity task

　 trauma-related EX. The trauma happened to me because of the sort of person I am

emotionally-neutral EX. In public libraries there are many different books that can be borrowed

Sentence: from PTCI Trials: 8 in each condition Trial size: 4 、 5 、 6 、 7 neutral-valance word Irrelevant word: 11 sentences in each condition

Group(sentence) trails Trail size words

dysfunctional beliefs 8 4 、 5 、 6 、 7 44 sentence-Word pairing

emotionally-neutral facts

8 4 、 5 、 6 、 7 44 sentence-Word pairing

Words(neutral)

Medical Research Council Psycholinguistics Databaselength (4 to 6 letters)number of syllables (one)familiarity (550 to 700)Imageability (450 to 600)

Did not relate to the sentence they were paired with.

Pilot study

Healthy community volunteers (n = 20)

sentences: size 4 - Mdifference=.08, SD=.17,t=2.16, P=.04; size 5 - Mdifference=.08, SD=.19, t=1.97; p=.06;size 6 - Mdifference=.07, SD=.16, t=1.95; P=.07; size 7 - Mdifference=0, SD=.12; t < 1.

Procedure

informed consent

eWMC task(trauma-related )

National Adult Reading

Test

eWMC task(neutral)

(1) Beck Depression

Inventory-II

(2) Impact of Event Scale

(3) Spielberger State-Trait

Anxiety Inventory

(4) SCID

End

Results

Participant characteristics

PTSDLT group showed impaired WMC in the context of trauma-related sentences, t(44) ＝ 2.66, P ＝ .005, Cohen’s d ＝ .80,

but not significantly in the context of neutral sentences, t(44)=1.30,P=.13, Cohen’s d=.39,

Sentence Type (trauma vs. neutral) by Group (PTSDLT vs. Controls) interaction between these two effects, F(1,44) =4.15, P=.048,

Emotional working memory capacity (eWMC)

Discussion

Discussion

eWMC task : History of PTSD ＝　 Current

PTSD< Trauma-exposed controls

Trauma survivors who, at any time, have struggled with PTSD suffer from significantly greater WMC impairments in emotional contexts compared with those survivors who have never suffered from PTSD and relative to non-significant group differences in performance in a valence-neutral context.

Clinical implications

Training program : CBM

Regulate emotion

Using images rather than sentences

Potential study limitations

Refine components of the experimental sentences clarify is whether the effects are confined to mid-

sized trials as the exploratory analyses indicate Healthy participants for WMC to be greater in the

face of trauma-related sentences, relative to neutral sentences

Did not assess depression and anxiety diagnostically sample

Thank for your attention