People
Principal Investigator
Lisa Shin, PhD
Dr. Shin received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology at Dartmouth College and a PhD in Psychology at Harvard University. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and has been a faculty member at Tufts since 1998.
Dr. Shin's research involves examining brain function and cognitive processing in patients with anxiety disorders, especially posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Specifically, she uses positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain function while patients perform attention and memory tasks in the scanner. The goal of this research is to determine whether brain structures such as the amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus function normally in patients with PTSD. Evidence thus far suggests that in PTSD, the amygdala is hyperresponsive and medial prefrontal cortex is hyporesponsive to threat-related stimuli. Dr. Shin and her colleagues are currently conducting studies to determine whether their functional neuroimaging measures can help predict response to treatment. Her research interests also include studying the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of emotional information (e.g., facial expressions, emotional words and pictures) in healthy individuals.
Undergraduate or graduate students who are interested in working in this lab should email Dr. Shin.
Graduate Students and Postdocs
Julia Felicione
Julia received a BA in both Psychology and Cognitive Science from Johns Hopkins University in 2016. Subsequently, Julia worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital for two years with Drs. Dougherty, Widge, Schwartz, and Deckersbach and studied fMRI methods and analysis as applied to a variety of psychiatric illnesses. Here at Tufts, Julia is using a multimodal neuroimaging approach to study the neurochemistry and structure of the amygdala and hippocampus in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Madelyn Jungbluth
Maddy received a BS in Neuroscience and German from the University of Michigan in 2023. During her time there, she worked in a cognitive neuroscience laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Duval, in which she studied threat and reward learning and memory using neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques in participants with comorbid PTSD and depressive symptoms. Here at Tufts, Maddy is interested in utilizing neuroimaging techniques to investigate learning and memory processing, especially in regard to fear and emotion, in individuals with PTSD.
Mike VanElzakker
Mike received a Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the University of Colorado Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, working in a stress neuroendocrinology lab. Here at Tufts, Mike is integrating molecular biology techniques into the lab's neuroimaging mission by characterizing glucocorticoid receptor proteins in individuals with PTSD. This may lead to better understand the underlying reasons for functional brain changes seen in this disorder. Mike is also interested in characterizing basic attentional function in PTSD, which may have implications for cognitive interventions.
Recent Alumni
Cecilia Hinojosa
Cecilia graduated with a BA in psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso. During the time there, Cecilia worked in a behavioral neuroscience laboratory for three years under the guidance of Dr. Laura O'Dell and focused on nicotine addiction in a rat model of diabetes. Cecilia also worked in Dr. Michael Zarate's Social/Cognitive Laboratory for two and a half years and focused on understanding negativity bias in models of PTSD. At Tufts, Cecilia is interested in using neuroimaging techniques to identify predictors of treatment response in patients with PTSD.