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The human threat-monitoring system
According to Dr. Bar Haim, humans have a “threat monitoring system” which fluctuates all the time, generating responses to potential threats in the environment and nullifying reactions to non-threatening stimuli.
In the computer training program, two stimuli (threatening or neutral) appear on the screen, followed by a target (an arrow) pointing left or right. The researchers hope to retrain the participant’s neural network to regain the balance between threat avoidance and threat vigilance. The treatment entailed four to eight sessions of computerized training, each of which lasted 10-15 minutes.
The training implicitly teaches participants that threatening stimuli are irrelevant to performing a specific task, requiring them to attend equally to threatening and neutral stimuli. The study determined that the training program reduced symptoms by reducing this variability in attention.
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Category(s):Other, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) / Trauma / Complex PTSD
Source material from http://www.psypost.org/
