Jerusalem, 2 December, 2025 (TPS-IL) — Specialized computer-based training can significantly reduce the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among combat soldiers, confirming and extending results first observed more than a decade ago, Israeli scientists announced. The findings highlight the potential of attentional training to protect soldiers’ mental health — and the consequences when such programs are discontinued.
The study, conducted in 2022–2023 with over 500 infantry soldiers, was led by Prof. Yair Bar-Haim, Director of the National Center for Traumatic Stress and Resilience and a member of the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University, together with doctoral student Chelsea Gober Dykan. It was carried out in collaboration with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Medical Corps and the U.S. Department of Defense, and now appears in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Psychiatry.
PTSD is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts. People with PTSD often avoid reminders of the trauma and may experience negative changes in beliefs and feelings. The condition is typically managed with therapy and medication.
In two years of war, more than 3,700 Israeli soldiers have been diagnosed with PTSD, while another 9,000 have applied for recognition.
Bar-Haim explained that the program, originally developed during a 2012 trial, uses simple computer‑based tasks in which soldiers view both neutral and threatening images or words, replaced by target shapes. “The soldiers are asked to identify the targets, a process that gradually trains them to direct more attention toward potential threats in their environment,” he said. Sessions last about ten minutes and are completed individually over four days.
In the original 2014 study among roughly 800 recruits undergoing basic training, the effect became evident during six weeks of war in Gaza. Four months later, 7.8% of untrained soldiers were diagnosed with PTSD, compared with just 2.6% of those who had completed the training.
The 2022–2023 replication trial divided soldiers into three groups: one third followed the original protocol, another third a revised version based on eye‑tracking technology, and the remainder placebo training. Soldiers were then deployed on their first rotations in Judea and Samaria, after which researchers assessed PTSD risk.
The results again favored the original protocol. In the control group, 5.3% reported clinically significant post‑traumatic symptoms; in the revised‑training group, 2.7%; and among those who completed the original program, just 0.9%.
“Replication of findings is a critical component of clinical science and provides confidence in the validity of results,” Prof. Bar-Haim said. “We once again found that the attentional training we developed is effective in reducing the risk of PTSD among soldiers deployed on operational settings, which further strengthens our confidence in its impact—that’s the good news. However, we also saw that the additional method we tested proved to be less effective. That’s how it is in science: our hypotheses don’t always hold up under rigorous testing, and we must draw conclusions accordingly and refine our tools through further research.”
However, because of budget cuts in the IDF’s Mental Health Department, the program was discontinued in 2023, months before the October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities.
“The less encouraging news is that the program was not available in its most potent and tested form to soldiers heading into the Gaza and Lebanon campaigns,” Bar-Haim said. In response, he and his team worked with the IDF to develop a mobile application, “Combat Attention,” enabling soldiers to complete the training on personal phones ahead of ground operations.
Bar-Haim noted that the study was conducted before the war, when soldiers’ duties mostly involved low‑intensity combat. The training demonstrated significant differences in PTSD risk between those who underwent it and those who did not, making the program valuable for routine deployments. In wartime, such differences likely grow — making attentional training even more desirable. He added that sustaining such programs is vital for preserving hard‑won mental‑health capabilities. Decision‑makers should act now to allocate the necessary budgets and design long‑term, evidence‑based PTSD prevention and mitigation for deploying troops.
The new findings — combining rigorous replication with real-world deployment — show that targeted attentional training can deliver lasting protective effects, even under harsh operational conditions. Policymakers should treat these results as a wake‑up call: investing in preventive mental‑health tools can save lives, preserve force readiness and reduce long‑term burdens on veterans.
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