Tomislav Zbozinek

Tomislav Zbozinek
University of California, Los Angeles | UCLA · Department of Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy

About

46
Publications
25,372
Reads
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3,624
Citations
Additional affiliations
September 2012 - present
University of California, Los Angeles
Position
  • PhD Student
Description
  • I am scheduled to graduate from UCLA's Clinical Psychology PhD program June, 2018. I defended my dissertation July 7, 2017 and will complete my clinical internship summer, 2018.
Education
September 2012 - December 2013
University of California, Los Angeles
Field of study
  • Clinical Psychology
August 2006 - May 2010
Claremont McKenna College
Field of study
  • Psychology

Publications

Publications (46)
Preprint
Full-text available
Contexts and discrete stimuli often influence the association between a stimulus and outcome. This phenomenon, called occasion setting, is central to the development and modulation of fear. We conducted a human fear conditioning study of Pavlovian occasion setting using traditional methodology and investigated the effects of trait anxiety on fear....
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Full-text available
In the natural world, stimulus-outcome associations are often noisy and ambiguous. Learning to disambiguate these associations to identify which specific outcomes will occur is critical for survival. Pavlovian occasion setters are stimuli that determine whether other stimuli that are ambiguous will result in a specific outcome. Occasion setting is...
Preprint
Full-text available
Faster extinction rate predicts less long-term fear in rodents. However, this has scarcely been studied in humans. The present report investigated the association between extinction rate and long-term fear in humans. We additionally evaluated specificity of extinction rate by including other fear conditioning values as predictors, and we evaluated...
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This study examines the relationship between self-reported and physiologically measured sleep quality and their impact on neurocognitive performance in individuals with depression. Using data from 249 participants with medium to severe depression monitored over 13 weeks, sleep quality was assessed via retrospective self-report and physiological mea...
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This study explores the capability of passive digital sensor data from smartphones and smartwatches to predict self-reported ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of affect, motivation, interest, and pleasure in activities in an unseen test sample. Using data from 245 depressed participants with high-to-low anhedonia (195 train, 50 test) generatin...
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Internalizing psychopathology is associated with abnormalities in heart rate variability (HRV). Lower HRV that reflects reduced parasympathetic nervous system activity has been observed in depressive and anxiety disorders. Existing studies predominantly used categorical rather than dimensional approaches, the latter of which better addresses clinic...
Preprint
Full-text available
This study examines the relationship between self-reported and physiologically measured sleep quality in individuals with depression and its impact on neurocognitive performance. Using data from 249 participants with medium to high depression monitored over 13 weeks, sleep quality was assessed via retrospective self-report and physiological measure...
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Full-text available
Background The amygdala is highly implicated in an array of psychiatric disorders but is not accessible using currently available noninvasive neuromodulatory techniques. Low-intensity transcranial focused ultrasound (TFUS) is a neuromodulatory technique that has the capability of reaching subcortical regions noninvasively. Methods We studied healt...
Article
Objective Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a pernicious psychiatric disorder which is principally characterized by a fear of weight gain. Notwithstanding the centrality of fear in the psychopathology of AN, controlled assessments of negative valence systems are lacking. Herein we assess fear conditioning in adolescent females with AN. Method Adolescent gi...
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Sensory over‐responsivity (SOR) is a prevalent cross‐diagnostic condition that is often associated with anxiety. The biological mechanisms underlying the co‐occurrence of SOR and anxiety symptoms are not well understood, despite having important implications for targeted intervention. We therefore investigated the unique associations of SOR and anx...
Preprint
Background: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a pernicious psychiatric disorder which is principally characterized by a fear of weight gain. Notwithstanding the centrality of fear in the psychopathology of AN, controlled assessments of negative valence systems are lacking. Herein we investigate whether deficits in either fear acquisition or fear extinction...
Article
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on decreasing negative affect rather than increasing positive affect and is ineffective for some individuals. A trial comparing novel Positive Affect Treatment (PAT) to Negative Affect Treatment (NAT; a form of CBT) showed that PAT more effectively increased positive affect and decreased negative affect, d...
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Full-text available
In the natural world, stimulus-outcome associations are often ambiguous, and most associations are highly complex and situation-dependent. Learning to disambiguate these complex associations to identify which specific outcomes will occur in which situations is critical for survival. Pavlovian occasion setters are stimuli that determine whether othe...
Article
In rodent studies, faster extinction rate has been shown to predict less long-term fear. However, this has scarcely been studied in humans. The present report investigated the association between extinction rate and long-term fear in humans. We secondarily evaluated specificity of extinction rate by including other fear conditioning values as predi...
Article
Full-text available
Exposure to stressful life events involving threat and uncertainty often results in the development of anxiety. However, the factors that confer risk and resilience for anxiety following real world stress at a computational level remain unclear. We identified core components of uncertainty aversion moderating response to stress posed by the COVID-1...
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Background Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a chronic and disabling psychiatric condition characterized by low hedonic drive towards food, and is thought to be inclusive of altered dimensions of reward processing. Whether there exists a fundamental aberrancy in the capacity to acquire and maintain de novo hedonic associations—a critical component of hedoni...
Article
Research from recent decades has highlighted the distinction between excitatory and inhibitory Pavlovian learning mechanisms. Based on this distinction, state-of-the-art exposure therapy for anxiety disorders emphasizes inhibitory learning and retrieval as its primary mechanism for long-term reduction in fear, anxiety, and avoidance. Seven years ag...
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Most of life’s decisions involve risk and uncertainty regarding whether reward or loss will follow. Decision makers often face uncertainty not only about the likelihood of outcomes (what are the chances that I will get a raise if I ask my supervisor? What are the chances that my supervisor will be upset with me for asking?) but also the magnitude o...
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Full-text available
Contexts and discrete stimuli often influence the association between a stimulus and outcome. This phenomenon, called occasion setting, is central to modulation-based Pavlovian learning. We conducted two experiments with humans in fear and appetitive conditioning paradigms, training stimuli in differential conditioning, feature-positive discriminat...
Preprint
Exposure to stressful life events involving threat and uncertainty often results in the development of anxiety. However, the factors that confer risk and resilience for anxiety following real world stress at a computational level remain unclear. We identified core components of uncertainty aversion moderating response to stress posed by the COVID-1...
Preprint
Most of life’s decisions involve risk and uncertainty regarding whether reward or loss will follow. A major approach to understanding decision-making under these circumstances comes from economics research. While many economic decision-making experiments have focused on gains/losses and risk (<100% probability of a given outcome), relatively few ha...
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Full-text available
Accurately estimating safety is critical to pursuing nondefensive survival behaviors. However, little attention has been paid to how the human brain computes safety. We conceptualize a model that consists of two components: (i) threat-oriented evaluations that focus on threat value, imminence, and predictability; and (ii) self-oriented evaluations...
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Background Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) commonly show sensory over‐responsivity (SOR), an impairing condition related to over‐reactive brain and behavioral responses to aversive stimuli. While individuals with ASD often show atypically high physiological arousal, it is unclear how this relates to sensory reactivity. We therefore...
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BACKGROUND: Generalisation of fear from dangerous to safe stimuli is an important process associated with anxiety disorders. However, factors that contribute towards fear (over)-generalisation remain poorly understood. The present investigation explored how attentional breadth (global/holistic and local/analytic) influences fear generalisation and,...
Preprint
Full-text available
Accurately estimating safety is critical to pursuing non-defensive survival behaviors, including reproduction and feeding. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to how the human brain computes safety. We conceptualize a model that consists of two components: threat-oriented evaluations that focus on threat value, imminence, and predic...
Preprint
Full-text available
In the natural world, stimulus-outcome associations are often noisy and ambiguous. Learning to disambiguate these associations to identify which specific outcomes will occur is critical for survival. Pavlovian occasion setters are stimuli that determine whether other stimuli that are ambiguous will result in a specific outcome. Occasion setting is...
Article
Full-text available
Efforts to change behaviour are critical in minimizing the spread of highly transmissible pandemics such as COVID-19. However, it is unclear whether individuals are aware of disease risk and alter their behaviour early in the pandemic. We investigated risk perception and self-reported engagement in protective behaviours in 1591 United States-based...
Preprint
During respiratory viral epidemics and pandemics such as the COVD-19 pandemic, everyday behaviors such as leaving the house and touching frequently-used surfaces become the subject of fear and avoidance due to their potential for contagion. Despite the potential mental health related impact of this psychological phenomenon, there are currently no m...
Preprint
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By mid-March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread to over 100 countries and all 50 states in the US. Government efforts to minimize the spread of disease emphasized behavioral interventions, including raising awareness of the disease and encouraging protective behaviors such as social distancing and hand washing, and seeking medical attention if expe...
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Research has demonstrated that stressors play a critical role in the development of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), and major depressive disorder (MDD). Separately, deficits in positive affect (PA) have been identified in GAD, SAD, and MDD. Whereas previous research has linked the buffering effects of PA in chroni...
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Background and objectives: Following an aversive experience, fears often generalize across contexts. Contextual fear generalization is modeled in a laboratory paradigm in which one context (CTX+) is paired with an aversive unconditional stimulus (US), while the other context (CTX-) is not. The current study sought to validate a novel paradigm asse...
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Full-text available
Exposure therapy for anxiety disorders is derived from Pavlovian extinction learning. With the aim of optimizing exposure therapy, the present study evaluated the effects of multiple extinction stimuli on inhibitory learning. In a differential fear conditioning procedure, participants were randomized to one of three extinction conditions: Extinctio...
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Although exposure is a valid treatment for anxiety disorders, efforts are being made to improve its overall effectiveness. The present article discusses one potential method of optimizing extinction learning and exposure therapy: increasing positive affect. The effect of positive affect on learning is discussed in regards to various components of l...
Article
Much emphasis in fear conditioning research is placed on understanding extinction learning, partly because of its application in treating anxiety disorders. Return of fear after extinction is a problem affecting long-term maintenance of treatment gains. The present study evaluated whether positive affect (PA) is associated with lower rates of reacq...
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Exposition ist eine wirksame Behandlung bei Angststörungen, jedoch zeigt eine substanzielle Anzahl von Klienten keine signifikante Symptomreduktion oder ein Wiederkehren der Angst. Es wird angenommen, dass ängstliche Personen Defizite in grundlegenden Mechanismen der Expositionstherapie, wie dem inhibitorischen Lernen, aufweisen. Ein gezieltes Ansp...
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While exposure therapy is effective in treating anxiety, fear can return after exposure. Return of fear can be understood through mechanisms of extinction learning. One form of return of fear is reinstatement, or, the fear that results from an unsignaled unconditional stimulus (US) presentation after extinction. Though the conditional response (CR;...
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A pesar de la efectividad de la terapia de exposicion para el tratamiento de los trastornos de ansiedad, algunos pacientes no se benefician de ella o experimentan un retorno del miedo despues del tratamiento. La investigacion sugiere que las personas con ansiedad presentan deficits en los mecanismos supuestamente implicados en la terapia de exposic...
Article
Full-text available
Exposure therapy for anxiety disorders is translated from fear conditioning and extinction. While exposure therapy is effective in treating anxiety, fear sometimes returns after exposure. One pathway for return of fear is reinstatement: unsignaled unconditional stimuli following completion of extinction. The present study investigated the extent to...
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Background: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are highly comorbid. A possible explanation is that they share four symptoms according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition-Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). The present study addressed the symptom overlap of people meeting DSM-IV-TR...

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