Tanja Jovanovic (gr5613)

 Professor

Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience
278 Tolan Park Medical Building
3901 Chrysler Service Drive
Detroit, Michigan 48201

Tanja Jovanovic, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and the David and Patricia Barron Chair for PTSD Neurobiology at Wayne State University. Dr. Jovanovic’s research program focuses on the interaction of traumatic experiences, neurophysiology, neuroendocrinology, and genetics in stress-related disorders in adults and children in high-risk populations. She directs the Detroit Trauma Project (www.detroittraumaproject.com), which investigates the impact that urban trauma exposure has on the brain. Her research employs psychophysiological (e.g. fear-potentiated startle, skin conductance response, heart-rate variability) and brain imaging methods (e.g. MRI, fMRI) to investigate biomarkers of risk for trauma-related psychopathology, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her laboratory developed novel human fear conditioning, fear inhibition, and extinction paradigms for PTSD patients. Dr. Jovanovic is the lead investigator on several federally funded grants from the National Institutes of Health and has an Independent Investigator Award from the Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and served on national and international grant review panels.

Faculty Profile

My research focuses on translational fear conditioning paradigms in patients with trauma-related disorders, using startle response as well as other psychophysiological and neuroimaging measures. My interests are in the association between genetic risk factors and psychopathology, with a focus on neurobiology, including fear-potentiated startle and brain function, with a focus on impaired inhibition processes. A central tenet of my research program is urban trauma in high-risk low income populations, and the intergenerational transmission of environmental and genetic risk factors on the developing brain.

Disease/Disorder

Trauma-related disorders; PTSD, anxiety, depression

Species

Human

Methods

fMRI, psychophysiology; fear-potentiated startle response.

Key Collaborators

Arash Javanbakht, M.D., Hilary Marusak, Ph.D., Christine Rabinak, Ph.D., Steve Ondersma, Ph.D., Kerry Ressler, Ph.D. (Harvard), Nicole Nugent, Ph.D. (Brown), Jennifer Stevens, Vasiliki Michopoulos, Barbara Rothbaum and Alicia Smith (Emory)

 PubMed Search (past 5 years).