About Us
Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the future of humanity.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/blog/anxious-who-isn-t-scientists-study-stress-in-the-brain/
Jan 24, 2020... “According to Gallup, in 2018, more Americans were stressed, worried and angry than at any point in the last 12 years. That is extraordinary when you consider that the past dozen years includes the 2008 financial crisis and multiple terrorist attacks. Furthermore, American stress levels are among the highest in the world. Seriously, Americans were as stressed as Iranians and more stressed than citizens of Rwanda, Turkey, and Venezuela,” reports The Washington Post, adding the technically accurate diagnosis: “That’s nuts.”
Jul 19, 2016...
Stress-coping molecule Urocortin-3 (green) and its receptor, CRFR2 (red), expressed in the mouse brain region responsible for social behavior. Viewed under a confocal microscope
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—July 19, 2016—Meeting new people can be both stressful and rewarding. Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, reported yesterday in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that a molecule involved in regulating stress in the brain may help determine how willing we are to leave the safety of our social group and strike up new relationships.
Sep 06, 2016...
Belmont, MA – In an unprecedented move, McLean Hospital, the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, a world leader in brain research, are launching an alliance that will lead to further understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders and accelerate the development of corresponding treatments.
“The lack of understanding and under treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders are significant public health concerns,” said Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD, chief scientific officer for McLean Hospital and professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “The only way that we’re going to make the most progress in future treatments, preventions, and cures is to combine efforts across the world.”
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/what-s-new-in-brain-research-at-weizmann/
Jun 10, 2019...
Weizmann Institute researchers from across the disciplines are pursuing topics in neuroscience, approaching this crucial field from a number of angles. That’s because understanding our brains – in both health and disease – benefits everyone on this planet.
From Alzheimer’s to autism, Parkinson’s to mental health, memory to aging and beyond, here are just some of the Institute’s neuroscience advances over just the past year:
May 04, 2018...
Source: Unsplash
Anxiety is the voice in the back of your head that says, “something bad is going to happen.” It’s what keeps you awake at 2 a.m. thinking about something embarrassing you did — five years ago.
Not all introverts have anxiety, and extroverts and ambiverts can struggle with it, too. To be clear, introversion and anxiety aren’t the same thing. Introversion is a preference for calm, minimally stimulating environments, whereas anxiety is a general term for disorders that cause excessive fear, worrying, and nervousness.
Mar 05, 2014...
Left to right: Prof. Dr. Peter Gruss, Prof. Alon Chen, and Prof. Daniel Zajfman.
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 5, 2014—On Tuesday, March 4, 2014, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Max Planck Society and the Weizmann Institute of Science to inaugurate the Max Planck – Weizmann Laboratory for Experimental Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurogenetics. The agreement was officially signed at the Weizmann Institute by Prof. Dr. Peter Gruss, President of the Max Planck Society, Prof. Daniel Zajfman, President of the Weizmann Institute, Dr. Ludwig Kronthaler, General Secretary of the Max Planck Society, and Prof. Haim Garty, Vice President of the Weizmann Institute.
Feb 10, 2014...
Schwartz’s research questions assumptions about the central nervous system.
Imagine being able to inhibit or reverse a universal affliction – brain degeneration – and specific diseases or physical injuries that cause its sudden onset. This is precisely what Prof. Michal Schwartz has spent the last two decades studying, with revolutionary results.
Schwartz is far from the stereotypical “mad scientist.” Pretty and petite, with a cascade of curls, she rushes down the hallway of her office and adjacent laboratory more like a student late for a class than an international award-winning powerhouse whose research has turned pre-existing dogma about the central nervous system on its head.
Mar 16, 2016...
Will we ever be able to understand the cacophonous chatter taking place between the 80 million neurons in our brains? Dr. Ofer Yizhar and his group in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology have taken a large step in that direction with a new research method that can provide scientists with targeted control over vital parts of the brain’s communications.
Dr. Yizhar works in the relatively new field of optogenetics, in which scientists use genetic engineering and laser light in thin optical fibers to investigate the living brain. With these tools, scientists can modulate and control the activities of nerve circuits in the brain, and thus begin to unravel the networks of links and nodes in the brain’s communications systems.
Mar 07, 2016...
Prof. Rony Paz
People suffering from anxiety perceive the world in a fundamentally different way than others, according to a study reported on March 3 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. The research may help explain why certain people are more prone to anxiety.
The new study shows that people diagnosed with anxiety are less able to distinguish between a neutral, “safe” stimulus (in this case, the sound of a tone) and one that had earlier been associated with gaining or losing money. In other words, when it comes to emotionally charged experiences, they show a behavioral phenomenon known as “over-generalization,” the researchers say.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/past-brain-activation-revealed-in-scans/
Jun 25, 2013... Illustrating the day-after effect of brain activation. The brain image at the back presents spontaneous (resting state) patterns before an fMRI-based neurofeedback training session. The front brain image presents spontaneous (resting state) patterns a day after the training session, illustrating the long-term trace of the training. The two brains are overlaid above scatter plots of individual subjects that demonstrate the “Hebbian-like” learning rule: cortical sites that were co-activated during training increased their resting state connectivity, while those that were de-correlated during training decreased it. For more information, see Harmelech et al., Journal of Neuroscience, 33(22):9488-97 2013. Photo credit: Weizmann Institute of Science. Read more
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