Attentional Bias and Attentional Bias Modification in PTSD

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a common psychological disorder after individuals suffering great traumatic experience. Studies with PTSD patients have found that they showed two opposite attentional bias when viewing threat information: attentional vigilance or attentional avoidance. Two perspectives were applied to explain the opposite performance: basing on the heterogeneity of PTSD, some researchers found that the symptom of avoidance was associated with attentional avoidance and the symptom of dissociation, the main symptom in PTSD dissociative subtype, was related to attentional vigilance. On the other hand, other researchers designed a new index to reflect the dynamic change of attentional bias from the perspective of the variability of PTSD in the processing of threat information. Both perspectives emphasized the moderating or mediating role of cognitive control of attentional bias in PTSD. In addition, Attention Control Training (ACT), which was originally a control condition of attentional bias modification (ABM), has shown positive effects in improving PTSD symptoms. These studies extended the clinical significance of attentional bias research in PTSD, and further study on the neural mechanism of attentional bias in PTSD and the expansion of ABM/ACT in clinical might be the direction of future research.<br><br>Funding Information: This work was funded by Scientific research project of Shanghai Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, China (20204Y0287) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (32071086).<br><br>Declaration of Interests: The author(s) declare no competing interests.<br>