LEARNING AND MEMORY IN COMBAT VETERANS WITH POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER

Objective: The authors investigated a broad range of memory functions for stimuli unrelated to trauma to determine whether symptoms such as intrusive memories might reflect an underlying cognitive deficit unrel ated to the psychological content of the traumatic memory in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Method: The authors measure d the intellectual functioning of 20 male combat veterans with PTSD an d 12 normal comparison subjects using the WAIS and evaluated them for Performance on memory using the California Verbal Learning Test. Resul ts: Veterans with PTSD showed normal abilities in the functions of ini tial attention, immediate memory, cumulative learning, and active inte rference from previous learning. However, these veterans showed a circ umscribed cognitive deficit, manifested by the presence of substantial retroactive interference and revealed by a significant decrement in r etention following exposure to an intervening word fist. Conclusions: The data suggest that patients with PTSD may have fairly specific defi cits in the monitoring and regulation of memory information.