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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 benefit of humanity.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/firework-memories/
Aug 15, 2019... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—August 15, 2019—Extraterrestrial scientists landing in a football stadium would be struck by the sight of the crowd suddenly standing up and shouting in unison. In a similar manner, since the 1990s, researchers have observed a special pattern of neuronal activity in rodents: tens of thousands of nerve cells firing in unison in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. But, like alien scientists, the researchers have not been able to understand the “language” of the rodents’ minds when these mysterious synchronous bursts occurred. Recently, however, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers succeeded in recording these rapid bursts of activity – called “hippocampal ripples” – in the human brain, and were able to demonstrate their importance as a neuronal mechanism underlying the engraving of new memories and their subsequent recall. These findings appeared in Science.
Oct 03, 2019...
A researcher working in the lab of Kadimastem in Ness Ziona (Hagit Stavinsky)
Kadimastem Ltd., a biotechnology firm that develops cell therapies, said it has received “promising interim results” from a first group of patients treated with its new therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal neurodegenerative condition that causes the loss of muscle control.
Sep 27, 2019... Fall is here and school is back in session. In the ninth episode of Weizmann in Focus, CEO Dave Doneson shares a simple tip to help prepare for success this academic year. Weizmann Prof. Noam Sobel, who studies the olfactory system, found that people who inhaled when presented with a problem-solving task performed better than those who exhaled. So, the next time you’re faced with a difficult task, take a deep breath!
Dec 05, 2019...
Distinct stink: Mice missing a key autism gene respond similarly to nonsocial and social smells. (Shutterstock)
Neurons in mice that lack an autism gene called CNTNAP2 do not differentiate well between social and nonsocial smells, according to a new study1. These neurons are located in the prefrontal cortex — a brain region that controls social behavior — and fire haphazardly.
The findings suggest that these differences drive the social problems in the mice and perhaps in autistic people with mutations in the gene. The results appeared 25 November in Nature Neuroscience.
Sep 24, 2019...
Seconds before a memory pops up, certain nerve cells jolt into action in sync. This new finding sheds light on how the brain stores and recalls information.
Studying brain cells in action inside the human head is tricky. Putting electrodes in someone’s brain requires surgery. It’s not something researchers do without a good reason. The new study involved people who already had electrodes put in their brains for some medical purpose. These participants all had epilepsy. That brain disorder causes storm-like surges of electrical activity in the brain, known as seizures. Doctors put the electrodes in the patients' brains so they could pinpoint those surges.
Nov 06, 2019...
Computer-enhanced MRI images of the brains of left-handed women identified two that were missing olfactory bulbs
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 6, 2019—Is a pair of brain structures called the olfactory bulbs, which are said to encode our sense of smell, necessary? That is, are they essential to the existence of this sense? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently showed that some humans can smell just fine, thank you, without said bulbs. Their finding – that around 0.6% of women, and more specifically, up to 4% of left-handed women, have completely intact senses of smell despite having no olfactory bulbs in their brains – calls into question the accepted notion that this structure is absolutely necessary for the act of smelling. The findings of this research, which were published in Neuron, could shake up certain conventional theories that describe the workings of our sense of smell.
Aug 28, 2019...
Image via Shutterstock.com
Prescribing the right anti-depression medication often involves tedious trial and error. Your psychiatrist suggests one type of pill, but it doesn’t work or has too many side effects. So you go on to the next medication and then another one until you finally find a prescription that seems to work. Meanwhile, the debilitating symptoms of depression continue.
Neuroscientist Dekel Taliaz found the entire drawn-out process to be, well, depressing. So, together with his brother Oren, he set up a company bearing the siblings’ family name – Taliaz – to apply the latest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable psychiatrists to prescribe the right anti-depression medication the first time.
Nov 04, 2019... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 4, 2019—We might refer to someone’s personality as “mousy,” but in truth, mice have a range of personalities nearly as great as our own. Prof. Alon Chen and members of two groups he heads – one in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology and one in the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany – decided to explore personality specifically in mice. This would enable the scientists to develop a set of objective measurements for this highly slippery concept. A quantitative understanding of the traits that make each animal an individual might help answer some of the open questions in science concerning the connections between genes and behavior. The findings of this research were published in Nature Neuroscience.
Oct 30, 2019...
Pairs of face images that elicited similar (left column) and different (right column) neuronal activation patterns. Each bar shows the response of one electrode to the face in the photo; the higher the bar and the lighter the red, the stronger the response
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 30, 2019—Our brains are so primed to recognize faces – or to tell people apart – that we rarely even stop to think about it, but what happens in the brain when it engages in such recognition is still far from understood. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have shed new light on this issue. They found a striking similarity between the way in which faces are encoded in the brain and successfully performing artificial intelligence (AI) systems known as deep neural networks.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/scientists-map-mouse-personality/
Nov 07, 2019...
Some mice are curious and explore every new hiding place. Others are more anxious and prefer to stay in their nest. ©MPI f. Molecular Genetics
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, together with colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have developed a computational method to objectively measure the personality of mice living in a semi-natural, group environment.
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