People
Graduate Student
Office
123 McKinly Lab
(860) 301-7641
(302) 831-3645 Fax
Primary Advisor
Robert F. Simons
Damion J. Grasso
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Evidence-Based Treatment, and Psychophysiology
I earned my Masters Degree from Wesleyan University working on two clinical trials examining effects of environmental stimuli on symptoms of geriatric insomnia and Major Depressive Disorder. While in Connecticut I worked as a clinical therapist in a residential treatment center and a therapeutic foster care agency. These clinical experiences, along with my becoming a foster parent, inspired a focus on childhood trauma and PTSD. For two years I conducted research at Yale University with Dr. Joan Kaufman on a longitudinal study examining developmental consequences of maltreatment. I was exposed to fMRI technology, biochemical methods of examining cortisol, and polymorphism genotyping examining the allelic variant of the serotonin transporter gene. I was struck by findings that high levels of social support not only buffered the risk of psychopathology conferred by maltreatment, but also the risk conferred by the high-risk allelic variant. While at Yale I also became active in transporting research to public policy and served on the board of a grassroots agency offering comprehensive psychological evaluations to foster children.
I moved to Delaware with interests in trauma and human relationships, and eager to study psychophysiological methodology with Dr. Robert Simons. One line of work employs psychophysiological methods towards better understanding the biological underpinnings of relationships. In three studies I found that processing facial pictures of relatives vs. familiar and unfamiliar individuals elicited enhanced event-related brain potentials (ERPs) associated with attention and arousal. In two of these studies, greater perceived parental support predicted greater ERP enhancement to parent faces.
For the past four years I have collaborated on a grant awarded by SAMHSA to the Delaware Division of Child Mental Health Services (DCMHS) to implement Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) statewide and gather effectiveness data. Dr. Charles Webb has directed this work. Preliminary data show significant reductions in symptoms, which are maintained for up to a year. My dissertation research, which is funded by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F31 MH 86227-01), extends this study by: (a) comparing physiological responses to threat-related stimuli in traumatized and non-traumatized youth; (b) determining if TF-CBT is associated with reductions in physiological reactivity; (c) examining potential relationships between parental support and pre- to post-treatment changes; and (d) examining session-by-session patterns of physiological activation and symptom change across treatment. Dr. Adele Hayes’s expertise in process research informs the latter aim.
Two additional projects are worth mentioning. The first involves collecting psychometric data on a computer program (The Computer-Assisted UCLA PTSD Reaction Index) I developed to screen for trauma-exposure and PTSD in children. It is based on the UCLA PTSD RI (Pynoos et al, 1998). The second involves managing data collection for an ongoing collaboration between Dr. Edna Foa at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drs. Robert Simons and Lawrence Cohen at the University of Delaware. Since 2003, incoming students have been recruited to complete a survey assessing stress, coping, and psychopathology and are asked to complete a two-year follow-up interview. The primary aim is to identify potential predictors of PTSD by examining students who experienced trauma between baseline and follow-up.
Recent Publications
Grasso, D. , Boonsiri, J., Lipschitz, D., Guyer, A., Houshyar, S., Douglas-Palumberi, H., Massey, J., Kaufman, J. (In Press). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The missed diagnosis. Child Welfare.
Grasso, D., Moser, J. S., Dozier, M., & Simons, R. (2009). ERP Correlates of Attention Allocation in Mothers Processing Faces of their Children. Biological Psychology, 81, 95-102.
Dozier, M., Grasso, D. , & Lindhiem, O. (2007). The role of caregiver commitment in foster care: Insights from the This is My Baby Interview. In D. Oppenheim & D. F. Goldsmith (Eds.), Attachment Theory in Clinical Work with Children (pp. 90-108). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Kaufman, J., Yang, B.-Z., Douglas-Palumberi, H., Grasso, D., Lipschitz, D. S., Houshyar, S., et al. (2006). Brain-derived neurotrophic factor-5-HTTLPR gene interactions and environmental modifiers of depression in children. Biological Psychiatry, 59(8), 673-680.
Kaufman, J. & Grasso, D. (2006). The early intervention foster care program: a glass half full. Child Maltreatment 11, 90-91.
Goel, N., & Grasso, D. J. (2004). Olfactory discrimination and transient mood change in young men and women: variation by season, mood state, and time of day. Chronobiology International, 21(4-5), 691-719.
