The adverse impact of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the developing mind in adolescence can extend well into adulthood. The developmental malleability of cognitive control capacity in this age group, however, may hold particular promise for cognitive training interventions. The present study investigated the effects of affective working memory (aWMT) compared to placebo-training on cognitive and affective functioning in adolescents with PTSD. 30 treatment-seeking adolescents trained for 20 days on either an affective dual n-back task (aWMT; n = 15) or a feature match task (placebo; n = 15). The aWMT group showed greater pre-to post-training increases in cognitive control as measured by the GoNogo task as well as improvements in symptoms of PTSD and increased use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies. These preliminary findings are promising given the potential for free and easy dissemination of the aWMT in schools and online.

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Backgrounds Cognitive control problems and deficiencies highlight the need for new therapeutic methods in adolescents with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The current study aimed at investigating the effect of emotional working memory training on the cognitive control of adolescents with PTSD. Methods & Materials Available sampling method was employed to select 5 adolescents (2 males and 3 females) with PTSD diagnosed based on the structured clinical interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM) (SCID-I), and the impact of event scale from 1 of the child care centers in Karaj, Iran. Selected subjects were under a 20-session training for emotional dual n-back working memory. All subjects were assessed during 3 stages pre-training, in training, and follow-up by go/no-go task. Variance analysis (repeated measures) and Bonferroni test were used to analyze the data. Results Results of the repeated measure ANOVA indicated that the emotional working memory training results showed increase in the ability of participants in cognitive control, the reaction time of correct response in go/no-go task from pretest (M=402) to post test (M=121/60), and then, the follow-up (113/80) (P<0.001, F=359/60). Conclusion Based on the results of the current study, emotional working memory training was an appropriate method to increase cognitive control in adolescents with PTSD. Therefore, it is suggested to conduct further similar studies by this training method on other clinical groups with larger sample size.