Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access

Tanja Jovanovic

Biography

Tanja Jovanovic received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Animal Behavior from Emory University in 2002, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Jovanovic has significant expertise in psychophysiological research with PTSD patients, as the focus of her NIMH postdoctoral fellowship (NRSA) was fear potentiated startle in combat-related PTSD. For the last decade she has been investigating mechanisms of fear inhibition using fear-potentiated startle in combat veterans and civilians with PTSD. She also set up an international collaboration with a team of clinicians are researchers from the University Hospital Zagreb in Croatia, in order to use the fear inhibition paradigms with Croatian war veterans with PTSD. Dr. Jovanovic directs a research program focusing on the interaction of neurophysiology, neuroendocrinology, and genetics in mental disorders. She heads the Neurophysiology laboratory of the Grady Trauma Project in Atlanta, and is the PI on two NIMH R21 grants to examine the effects of cortisol suppression on fear-potentiated startle in PTSD and neuroimaging correlates of fear inhibition in PTSD. In addition, she was awarded a NARSAD Young Investigator Award for her research examining early precursors of fear dysregulation in children of mothers with PTSD. Her research has resulted in over 50 peer-reviewed publications, and national and international recognition in the field of PTSD neurobiology.

Research Interest

Her research interest to investigate fear-related neurobiological phenotypes associated with symptoms of trauma-related disorders, Cognitive & Experimental Psychology, Childhood physical abuse, Childhood emotional abuse, Sexual abuse, anxiety disorders, Childhood and adult trauma, fear.