Lana Grasser
Office Address
5057 Woodward Ave.,
Room 8307.5
Detroit, MI 48202
Biography
Dr. Lana Ruvolo Grasser (she/ella) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Ben L. Silberstein Institute for Brain Health at Wayne State University. Dr. Grasser recently completed her postdoctoral training with the Neuroscience and Novel Therapeutics Unit (NNT) within the Emotion and Development Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health. She received her BS from Michigan State University and her Ph.D. from Wayne State University, where her NIMH-funded dissertation project, “Biomarkers of Risk and Resilience to Trauma in Syrian Refugee Youth”, identified skin conductance response to trauma interview and fear potentiated startle as candidate biomarkers of trauma-related psychopathology in youth exposed to civilian war trauma and forced migration. Dr. Grasser received the 2022 International Society for Developmental Psychobiology Dissertation Award for this work. Dr. Grasser has extended this work to query efficacy and underlying mechanisms of creative arts and movement therapies to address trauma-related psychopathology in families resettled as refugees of Syria, Iraq, the DRC, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. She has led efforts to extend these programs to the virtual space for schoolchildren and to neighborhoods across Detroit for youth and caregivers. Dr. Grasser is also passionate about science policy and advocacy. She has published in the Journal of Science Policy and Governance, is a member of the National Science Policy Network, and is the faculty advisor for the local SciPol Detroit chapter. Currently, she is serving as a Society for Neuroscience Early Career Policy Ambassador. Most recently, Dr. Grasser received a travel award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and an Emerging Leader Award from the Anxiety and Depression Association of American in recognition of her research and advocacy.
Division
Department of Psychology
Ben L. Silberstein Institute for Brain Health
Education/Training
Bachelor's of Science in Neuroscience, Minor in Dance, and Honors Degree, Michigan State University;
Ph.D. in Translational Neuroscience, Wayne State University;
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Neuroscience and Novel Therapeutics, National Institue of Mental Health
Office Phone
313-389-1777
Laboratory Web Site
r2lab.online
Research
The goals of her research are twofold: 1) to identify biomarkers of risk and resilience for trauma-related psychopathology in youth and 2) translate mechanistic discoveries to the development, implementation, and assessment of scalable interventions for youth. To achieve these goals, she leverages functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and psychophsyiological testing (e.g., wearable biosensing; fear-potentiated startle).
Research Interests
Trauma, Child and Adolescents, Refugee Mental Health, Civilian War Trauma and Forced Migration, Dance/Movement Therapy, Art Therapy
Disease/Disorder Research
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); anxiety disorders; irritability
Research Key Collaborators
Dr. Tanja Jovanovic; Dr. Arash Javanbakht; Dr. Hilary Marusak; Dr. Melissa A. Brotman; Dr. Ned Kalin; Dr. Kerry Ressler; Dr. Robert 'Ty' Partridge; Dr. Mark Greenwald
Research Methods
Fear-Potentiated Startle, Fear conditioning/extinction learning, Psychophysiology (e.g., electrodermal activity, heart rate, heart rate variability, wearable biosensing), Neuroimaging (functional MRI)
Publications
Selected publications; see full list here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JxIoO1sAAAAJ&hl=en
Grasser, L. R., Yang, R., Brotman, M. A., & Wiggins, J. L. (2024). The contribution of childhood trauma to irritability symptoms. JCPP Advances, e12260.
Grasser, L. R., Saad, B., Bazzi, C., Suhaiban, H. A., Mammo, D. F., Izar, R., ... & Jovanovic, T. (2023). The fear that remains: Associations between trauma, related psychopathology, and fear‐potentiated startle in youth resettled as refugees. Developmental psychobiology, 65(4), e22385.
Grasser, L. R. (2022). Addressing mental health concerns in refugees and displaced populations: is enough being done?. Risk management and healthcare policy, 909-922.
Grasser, L. R., Saad, B., Bazzi, C., Wanna, C., Abu Suhaiban, H., Mammo, D., ... & Javanbakht, A. (2022). Skin conductance response to trauma interview as a candidate biomarker of trauma and related psychopathology in youth resettled as refugees. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 13(1), 2083375.
Grasser, L. R., & Jovanovic, T. (2021). Safety learning during development: Implications for development of psychopathology. Behavioural Brain Research, 408, 113297.
Grasser, L. R., Al-Saghir, H., Wanna, C., Spinei, J., & Javanbakht, A. (2019). Moving through the trauma: Dance/movement therapy as a somatic-based intervention for addressing trauma and stress among Syrian refugee children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 58(11), 1124-1126.