Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab

Research Overview

The AND Lab focuses on how neurobiological changes from pre-puberty through early adulthood influence affect and behaviour. We combine high-resolution neuroimaging (7 Tesla fMRI) with novel decision-making tasks, psychophysiology and computational modelling to understand the nature of decision making. We're particularly interested in how the adolescent brain processes reward, safety and threat, as well as how these processes confer risk for psychopathology. Other interests include identity development, emotion regulation, prosocial behaviour, stress and inflammation, and social relationships.

Ongoing projects

Safety learning in adolescence and early adulthood.
This project uses 7T fMRI to examine how threat and safety are processed in the brain.

Puberty and self-related cognition.
This project uses 7T fMRI and pubertal measures to understand how self-related cognition develops during adolescence.

Stress reduction strategies.
This project uses a conscious connected breathwork intervention to examine how regulated breathing can change physiology and learning under stress.

Emotion regulation and risk taking.
This project uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to identify emotion regulation strategies associated with well-being.

Meta-analyses and theoretical work.
The AND Lab is conducting ongoing work related to synthesizing existing research and proposing new theoretical models.

If you (ages 18-25) or your child (ages 12-17) are interested in participating in one of our studies, please email us at ANDLab.UniMelb@gmail.com.

Staff

Yubing Zhang (PhD Student)
Sara MacPhail (PhD Student)
Naomi Daniel (PhD Student)
Fahimeh Hosseini (PhD Student)
Joe Cussen (Computational Consultant)
Indi Berberich (Project Manager)
Angie Pai (Public Programs & Engagement)
Clement Young Hao Lau (Honours, RA)
Maria Andreou (RA)
Jackie Gu (RA)

Collaborators

The AND Lab collaborates with researchers across the Brain and Mental Health and Cognitive Neuroscience Hubs in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences.

Lab collaborations include:

Funding

Our research is supported by The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australian Research Council (ARC), Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) and the United States National Science Foundation (NSF)

Research Outcomes

Our recent theoretical and empirical research has contributed to understanding the computational and neurobiological architecture of safety decisions. Our broader work has shown that environmental stressors can be buffered by reward circuitry in the brain, the way social information is processed has relevance for adolescent prosocial behaviour, and environmental factors like sleep and parent/peer relationships are important for adolescent neural functioning.

Research Publications

Zhang, Y. , Coates, M. , Garrido, M., Tashjian, S. M. (2026). Age-related differences in hippocampal network engagement during safety processing in adolescents. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 81, 101791.

Zhang, Y. , Garrido, M. I., Paul, J. M., Tashjian, S.M. (2026). Safety-relevant experience reshapes neural codes for ambiguous threat in adolescents. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 21.

Tashjian, S. M., Cussen, J. , Deng, W. , Zhang, B., Mobbs, D. (2025). Subregions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex integrate threat and protective information to meta-represent safety. PLOS Biology, 23, e3002986.

Mildred-Short, G., Tashjian, S. M. (2025). Adverse childhood experiences and adult psychopathology. A latent class analysis approach. Child Abuse & Neglect, 169, 107672.

Tashjian, S. M., Wise, T., & Mobbs, D. (2022). Increased model-based control for acquiring protection compared to acquiring reward and avoiding punishment. PLOS Computational Biology, 18, e1010805.

Tashjian, S. M., Tashjian, S. M., Zbozinek, T. D., & Mobbs, D. (2021). A decision architecture for safety computations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25, 342-354.

Research Projects

For project inquiries, contact our research group head.

Faculty Research Themes

Neuroscience

School Research Themes

Cognitive Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology and Clinical Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology

Key Contact

For further information about this research, please contact Head of Lab Dr Sarah Tashjian

Department / Centre

Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences

Unit / Centre

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