Abstract | OBJECTIVE: Drawing on two different populations, Israeli police and Hungarian civilians, the present study assessed the ability of individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD) to generalize previous learning to novel situations. Past neuroimaging studies have demonstrated diminished medial temporal lobe (MTL) activation and/or reduced hippocampal volume in individuals with PTSD. Our earlier computational models of cortico-hippocampal function and subsequent experimental tests of these models in MTL-impaired clinical populations argue that even mild hippocampal dysfunction may result in subtle impairments in generalization. Therefore, we predicted that individuals with PTSD would show impaired generalization. METHOD: We compared the performance of five groups from two countries, including 19 Israeli police with PTSD and 22 trauma-exposed police without PTSD, and 22 Hungarian civilians with PTSD, 25 trauma-exposed civilians without PTSD, and 25 individuals without PTSD unexposed to the same trauma. Participants were tested on a two-phase learning paradigm, the Acquired Equivalence Task, which measures the ability to generalize past learning to novel situations. RESULTS: We found that both PTSD and non- PTSD participants were capable of learning the initial stimulus-outcome associations, F(4, 108) = 1.79, p = .14. However, as predicted, only individuals with PTSD showed a selective deficit in generalization of this learning to novel situations ( F(4, 108) = 8.35, p < .001, Partial η2 = 0.26). CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with PTSD show a selective impairment in generalization of past learning similar to other clinical populations with MTL/hippocampal dysfunction. This is consistent with an emerging view of PTSD as being not only an anxiety disorder but also a learning disorder.
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Authors | Einat Levy-Gigi, Szabolcs Kéri, Catherine E Myers, Zvi Lencovsky, Hadas Sharvit-Benbaji, Scott P Orr, Mark W Gilbertson, Richard J Servatius, Jack W Tsao, Mark A Gluck |
Journal | Neuropsychology
(Neuropsychology)
Vol. 26
Issue 6
Pg. 758-67
(Nov 2012)
ISSN: 1931-1559 [Electronic] United States |
PMID | 22846034
(Publication Type: Comparative Study, Journal Article)
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Copyright | (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved. |
Topics |
- Adult
- Association Learning
(physiology)
- Cognition Disorders
(etiology, physiopathology)
- Cross-Cultural Comparison
- Female
- Generalization, Psychological
(physiology)
- Hippocampus
(physiopathology)
- Humans
- Hungary
- Israel
- Male
- Neuropsychological Tests
- Police
- Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
- Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
(complications, physiopathology)
- Temporal Lobe
(physiopathology)
- Workforce
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