# Future-Oriented Cognition in PTSD

> **NIH VA I01** · VA BOSTON HEALTH CARE SYSTEM · 2021 · —

## Abstract

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.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9892967
- **Project number:** 5I01CX001596-03
- **Recipient organization:** VA BOSTON HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
- **Principal Investigator:** MIEKE H. VERFAELLIE
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-01-01 → 2022-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9892967

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9892967, Future-Oriented Cognition in PTSD (5I01CX001596-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9892967. Licensed CC0.

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