Reward Processing and Decision-Making in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

May, Casey L.; Wisco, Blair E.

doi:10.1016/j.beth.2019.11.005

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Moreover, participants diagnosed with PTSD who have had the most exposure to traumatic events are the ones who exhibit stronger aversion to ambiguous losses (Ruderman et al, 2016). Taken together, these results suggest that the high levels of psychological impact experienced by patients diagnosed with PTSD make them avoid losses when making decisions (May & Wisco, 2020).…”

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confidence: 85%

“…They also completed a survey on mental health status and experiences, concerns, behaviors and beliefs related to the COVID-19 pandemic (we conducted exploratory analyses to check whether these factors also modulated decision-making). Based on previous literature, we expected participants suffering with higher levels of psychological impact to present augmented biases in the framing problems (Porcelli & Delgado, 2009), and, more concretely, to avoid losses in this task (Ruderman et al, 2016;May & Wisco, 2020). We also expected that these participants would make fewer utilitarian choices in personal utilitarian/deontological moral dilemmas (Youssef et al, 2012).…”

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confidence: 97%

“…The lack of balance between automatic responses and controlled information processing under stress may be attributed to an exacerbated reliance on rapid and automatic (System 1) tendencies, thus hampering controlled cognitive processes (Starcke & Brand, 2012). In addition, and as pointed out above, the psychological impact associated with posttraumatic stress seems to increase loss aversion in decision-making tasks (Ruderman et al, 2016;May & Wisco, 2020). However, we still do not know whether these response patterns are replicable in realworld situations, as well as the implications they might have in conditions outside the laboratory.…”

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confidence: 98%

“…To the best of our knowledge, only a limited number of studies have explored the potential link between the psychological impact suffered after experiencing traumatic events and decision-making. For instance, in risk and ambiguity experimental decision-making tasks, in which participants have to choose between sure gains/ losses and risky or ambiguous chances of gaining/losing variable amounts, participants diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) usually exhibit ambiguity and risk aversion, but only when making choices associated with losses (May & Wisco, 2020;Ruderman et al, 2016). Moreover, participants diagnosed with PTSD who have had the most exposure to traumatic events are the ones who exhibit stronger aversion to ambiguous losses (Ruderman et al, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Decision-Making Processes

Romero-Rivas

Rodríguez-Cuadrado

2021

Span. J. Psychol.

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A sample of 641 participants were presented with four decision-making tasks during the first stages of the COVID–19 lockdown in Spain: The dictator game, framing problems, utilitarian/deontological and altruistic/egoistic moral dilemmas. Participants also completed questionnaires on mental health status and experiences related to the COVID–19 pandemic. We used boosted regression trees (an advanced form of regression analysis based on machine learning) to model relationships between responses to the questionnaires and decision-making tasks. Results showed that the psychological impact of the COVID–19 pandemic predicted participants’ responses to the framing problems and utilitarian/deontological and altruistic/egoistic moral dilemmas (but not to the dictator game). More concretely, the more psychological impact participants suffered, the more they were willing to choose the safest response in the framing problems, and the more deontological/altruistic were their responses to moral dilemmas. These results suggest that the psychological impact of the COVID–19 pandemic might prompt automatic processes.

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confidence: 85%

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confidence: 97%

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confidence: 98%

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confidence: 99%

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The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Decision-Making Processes

Romero-Rivas

Rodríguez-Cuadrado

2021

Span. J. Psychol.

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“…including reduced expectation of uncertain monetary outcomes (Hopper et al 2008;May and Wisco 2019) and decreased differentiation between monetary gains and losses in the striatum (Elman et al 2009). Our experimental approach allowed us to estimate individual uncertainty attitudes during active decision making under four unique contexts.…”

Section: Using Behavioral Economics To Identify Markers Of Psychopathmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Value to Saliency: Neural Computations of Subjective Value under Uncertainty in PTSD

Jia

Ruderman

Gordon

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Combat soldiers are vulnerable to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), following traumatic experiences in the battlefield. Studies have often used fear-related design to unravel the underlying neural deficits of learning and emotion regulation in PTSD patients. However, the role of individual uncertainty attitudes in the development of trauma-related psychopathology has hardly been examined, especially that uncertainty is highly related to the traumatic experiences from the battlefield. Through a monetary gambling paradigm inspired by behavioral economics, we explore the neural markers of PTSD symptoms of combat veterans in the realm of decision making, focusing on the subjective valuation of uncertain monetary gains and losses. We identify increased behavioral aversion to risky monetary gains and ambiguous monetary losses related to higher PTSD symptom severity. We find the key role of the emotional numbing cluster of PTSD symptoms in influencing the general activities of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during valuation.We further suggest that a shift from value-to saliency-encoding pattern of subjective values across rewards and punishments in the valuation neural system, especially in ventral striatum, exist in combat veterans with PTSD, compared with trauma-exposed controls. Our results elucidate the increased neural sensitivity to highly salient rewards and punishments related to PTSD symptoms, and at the same time, point to the fundamental differences in brain regions involved in reward-and punishment-processing. We also identify

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Positive emotion in posttraumatic stress disorder: A global or context‐specific problem?

Pugach

May

Wisco

2023

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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Problems with positive emotion are an important component of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with competing perspectives as to why. The global model suggests that people with PTSD experience a relatively permanent shift in their capacity for positive emotion regardless of context, whereas the context‐specific model posits access to the full repertoire of positive emotion that only becomes reduced during exposure to trauma reminders. We tested the global versus context‐specific models using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Trauma‐exposed adult community members (N = 80) with (n = 39) and without diagnosed PTSD completed 3 days of EMA (n = 2,158 observations). Participants with PTSD reported lower average momentary levels of positive emotion, B = −0.947, 95% CI [−1.35, −0.54], p < .001, and positive situations, B = −0.607, 95% CI [−1.16, −0.05], p = .032, and more thinking about trauma reminders, B = 0.360, 95% CI [0.21, 0.51], p < .001. There was no between‐group difference in positive emotion reactivity (degree of positive emotion derived from positive situations), B = 0.03, 95% CI [−0.09, 0.14], p = .635. Increased thinking about trauma reminders predicted lower momentary levels of positive emotion, B = −0.55, 95% CI [−0.83, −0.26], p < .001, but not reactivity, B = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.35, 0.40], p = .906, irrespective of PTSD status. Findings supported the global model and were inconsistent with the context‐specific model. This study helps clarify positive emotional functioning in trauma‐exposed adults and highlights future directions to better understand problems with positive emotion in PTSD.

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Reward Processing and Decision-Making in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Cited by 12 publications

References 30 publications

The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Decision-Making Processes

The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Decision-Making Processes

From Value to Saliency: Neural Computations of Subjective Value under Uncertainty in PTSD

Positive emotion in posttraumatic stress disorder: A global or context‐specific problem?

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