About

In the RISC Lab, we seek to understand why some people are more prone to anxiety-related conditions and to use this knowledge to better understand and treat PTSD, suicide, and substance use disorders. Our mission is to identify and mitigate transdiagnostic vulnerability factors for these conditions, with the ultimate goal of developing targeted, scalable interventions. To accomplish this, we use a suite of neurobehavioral methodologies (e.g., EEG, eye-tracking, skin conductance, heart rate variability) and leverage technological advances (e.g., smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment, virtual reality) to conduct state-of-the-art clinical science.

Research topics

• Clinical psychology
• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Medical emergency
• Surgery
• Medicine
• Cognitive psychology

Selected publications

• Discrete Deviations in Emotional Processing and Regulation Among Individuals With <scp>PTSD</scp> : Evidence of <scp>P300</scp> and <scp>LPP</scp> Response Differences

  Psychophysiology · 2026-01-01

  article

  Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been widely investigated to uncover associated neural deficits characterizing PTSD. However, existing studies investigating deviations in ERP components in PTSD compare differences among individuals with PTSD and healthy controls with no trauma history. Furthermore, associations between ERPs and PTSD symptom clusters are rarely investigated. Understanding how reliable neural potentials differ among individuals who develop versus do not develop PTSD following trauma could inform on the pathophysiology of the disorder and potential neural risk markers that further our understanding of its etiology. The present study extracted neural activity reflecting various stages of emotional processing (i.e., P300, early LPP, and late LPP) during an emotional regulation task to evaluate differences in emotional reactivity and regulation among individuals with PTSD (n = 49) versus individuals who were exposed to a traumatic event but did not develop PTSD (n = 85). Individuals with PTSD exhibited reduced P300 amplitudes while suppressing emotional experience to negative images and reduced early LPP across emotion regulation conditions. Furthermore, blunted suppress P300 and higher enhance P300 were both uniquely associated with PTSD. Symptom cluster analyses revealed that deficits in suppress P300 are attributed to avoidance symptoms, while larger P300 are attributed to hyperarousal symptoms. Results demonstrate that individuals with PTSD are characterized by deficits in early emotional expression and regulation (i.e., enhance and suppress P300) compared to those who did not develop the disorder. These deficits are potentially reflecting symptoms of hyperarousal and avoidance, respectively.

  PublisherDOI

• Reductions in suicide ideation via PTSD symptoms following an anxiety sensitivity intervention: Evidence for chained mediation

  Journal of Affective Disorders · 2026-03-05

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Distress Intolerance Is Associated With a Greater Reward Positivity to Aversive Avoidance Feedback

  Psychophysiology · 2026-02-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Research indicates that the reward positivity (RewP) can be elicited by both appetitive gain (e.g., winning money) and aversive outcome avoidance (e.g., safety from a noise blast). Yet, little work has linked these differential reward responses with avoidance-related psychopathology risk factors. The present study addressed this gap by examining the associations of distress intolerance (DI), a risk factor for maladaptive avoidance-based strategies, with reward responses during two versions of a simple guessing task: the monetary doors task and aversive avoidance doors task. Young adults (n = 102) were recruited from a large university campus to complete two versions of a doors task in which they were instructed to choose one of two doors and view feedback that indicated monetary gain/loss in one task (i.e., monetary doors task) or avoidance/administration of an aversive noise blast in the other task (i.e., aversive avoidance doors task). The RewP was extracted at FCz from 250 to 350 ms in each condition. ΔAvoidance RewP was calculated as the residualized difference score of Avoidance Win (i.e., no aversive sound) relative to Avoidance Loss (i.e., pending noise blast administration). ΔMonetary RewP was calculated as the residualized difference score of Monetary Win relative to Loss. Feedback-locked P300 waveforms in each condition were also extracted. Results indicated that greater self-reported DI was linked with a larger ΔAvoidance RewP (β = 0.32, p = 0.026) and Avoidance Feedback P300 (β = 0.36, p = 0.012) but not the ΔMonetary RewP (p = 0.467) or Monetary Feedback P300 (p = 0.573). Findings were not better explained by self-reported symptoms of depression, trait anxiety, trauma history, or task-related state anxiety. The present study demonstrates that elevated DI is associated with exaggerated reward activation to avoidance-related feedback (ΔAvoidance RewP). Taken together, this work advances our understanding of DI and suggests the utility of the ΔAvoidance RewP for understanding disruptions of negative reinforcement.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Exploring the role of anxiety sensitivity in amplifying momentary posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

  Cognitive Behaviour Therapy · 2026-03-12

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  = 82) completed a baseline survey and diary follow-up in which PTSD symptoms were assessed three days/week for two weeks. Multilevel modeling was used to evaluate whether baseline, trait-level AS moderated the association between within-person increases in trauma reminders and PTSD symptoms. Unexpectedly, AS total score did not significantly moderate the relationship between momentary trauma reminders and PTSD symptom clusters. However, AS cognitive and social concerns significantly interacted with trauma reminders to predict greater PTSD avoidance symptoms and AS physical concerns blunted the effect of trauma reminders on negative alterations in cognition and mood (NACM). These findings add to growing literature linking AS with PTSD symptom severity and demonstrated that AS subfactors may differentially amplify the effects of traumatic reminders on PTSD symptom clusters.

  PublisherDOI

• The association of negative urgency and sustained attention: Evidence from the late positive potential

  Journal of Affective Disorders · 2025-06-19

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Differential patterns of daily trauma-related avoidance among suicide attempters and non-attempters

  Journal of Affective Disorders · 2025-10-24

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Unique relations of avoidant, emotion, and problem focused coping and suicidality in a sample of sexual and gender minorities

  Journal of Affective Disorders · 2025-03-13 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and suicide risk among Hispanic/Latinx university students: Examining perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness.

  Traumatology An International Journal · 2025-02-10

  article
  PublisherDOI

• PTSD symptoms, suicidal ideation, and suicidal risk among university students: The role of shame.

  Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy · 2025-01-01 · 5 citations

  article

  OBJECTIVE: Suicide is a major public health concern and the third leading cause of death for people aged 15-24. In recent years, suicidal ideation and behaviors among university students have increased. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a well-established factor related to suicidal ideation, behaviors, and risk across populations. It is important to understand cognitive-affective mechanisms related to the association of PTSD and suicidal ideation to inform evidence-based prevention and intervention efforts. Shame, defined as an intense negative emotion involving feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, and self-consciousness, has been identified as both a predictor and correlate of suicidal ideation and behaviors as well as PTSD symptom severity. To date, the literature exploring the role of shame in PTSD-suicide risk associations has been focused on military samples, and no studies have evaluated these associations among university students. METHOD: The present study examined the association of PTSD symptomatology with suicidal ideation and suicide risk through shame among trauma-exposed university students. The sample included 1,497 university students (Mage = 21.3 years, SD = 4.35) who endorsed exposure to at least one potentially traumatic event. RESULTS: Results indicated that shame exerted a significant indirect effect on the association of PTSD symptomatology with (a) suicidal ideation (β = .021, 95% CI [.015, .026]) and (b) suicide risk (β = .032, 95% CI [.022, .043]). CONCLUSIONS: This research has the potential to advance university mental health outreach programs and policy by informing clinically relevant content for intervention programs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Eliciting social approach-avoidance conflict within a novel experimental paradigm: psychometric and computational evidence with a successful pre-registered replication

  Cognition & Emotion · 2025-08-05

  articleOpen access

  AAC paradigms, no research has developed a paradigm that experimentally elicits and reliably quantifies social AAC in humans. To address this issue, we developed and validated a novel social AAC (SAAC) paradigm with an independent replication across two samples. In the SAAC paradigm, morphed facial expressions are used to parametrically modulate the intensity of social reward (happiness), social threat (anger), or social reward-threat conflict (co-occurring happiness and anger). Demonstrating robust AAC effects, social reward-threat conflict uniquely elicited more intermediate approach-avoidance choice selection and slower reaction times compared to social reward and social threat. Furthermore, computational drift diffusion models demonstrated that social AAC was driven by noisier evidence accumulation processes. Together, these findings demonstrated and replicated that our novel SAAC paradigm reliably elicits social AAC, which may provide a more mechanistic understanding of social behavior and its dysregulation in psychopathology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Norman B. Schmidt

  Florida State University

  57 shared

• Richard J. Macatee

  21 shared

• Daniel W. Capron

  Louisiana State University

  15 shared

• Nicholas P. Allan

  VA Finger Lakes Healthcare System

  13 shared

• Nicole A. Short

  University of Nevada, Las Vegas

  12 shared

• Aaron M. Norr

  Seattle University

  11 shared

• Joseph W. Boffa

  Tulane University

  10 shared

• Michael J. Zvolensky

  9 shared

Labs

• RISC Lab at Texas A&M UniversityPI

  Research on risk factors for anxiety-related conditions, with a particular emphasis on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs).

Awards & honors

• NIMH T32 (funding)
• NIDA F31 (funding)
• Brain and Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investig…