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 benefit of humanity.
Feb 19, 2006...
Approximately 18.8 million American adults suffer from depression, the leading cause of disability in the United States. Yet only about half the patients who take common medical treatments like antidepressant drugs actually see a therapeutic effect. Moreover, they suffer a broad range of undesirable side effects including weight gain, sexual dysfunction and even suicidal behavior.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a far higher success rate, with some 80% of patients responding positively. ECT, however, is a highly invasive treatment involving general anesthesia, with many serious side effects ranging from dizziness and headaches to temporary or even permanent memory impairment.
Jun 27, 2016...
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—June 27, 2016—Disrupted fetal immune system development, such as that caused by viral infection in the mother, may be a key factor in the later appearance of certain neurodevelopmental disorders. This finding emerges from a Weizmann Institute study published in Science on June 23.
The study may explain, among other things, how the mother’s infection with the cytomegalovirus (CMV) during pregnancy, which affects her own and her fetus’s immune system, increases the risk that her offspring will develop autism or schizophrenia, sometimes years later. This increased risk of neurodevelopmental diseases was discovered many years ago in epidemiological studies and confirmed in mouse models, and now the Weizmann study – led by Dr. Ido Amit of the Department of Immunology and Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Department of Neurobiology – provides a possible explanation for this increase on the cellular and the mechanistic molecular levels.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/all-too-human/
Jan 22, 2019...
The tradeoff shown in human brains (top) and monkey brains (bottom). The more evolutionarily advanced, the more efficient and the less robust each area proved to be.
Prof. Rony Paz of the Weizmann Institute of Science suggests that our brains are like modern washing machines – evolved to have the latest sophisticated programming, but more vulnerable to breakdown and prone to develop costly disorders. He and a group of researchers recently conducted experiments comparing the efficiency of the neural code in non-human and human primates and found that, as the neural code gets more efficient, the robustness that prevents errors is reduced. Their findings, which appeared in Cell, may help to explain why disorders as ADHD, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and even autism are common in humans.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/healing-a-battle-scarred-mind/
Apr 20, 2015...
Some soldiers are destined to relive the horrors of the battlefield for the rest of their lives. YURI KOZYREV / NOOR IMAGES
Daniel* deployed to Iraq aged 24. He thought he was invincible. His first firefight was intoxicating and Daniel quickly became the sort of squad leader everyone looked up to – unshakeable, the first into the line of fire. The problems began after one of Daniel’s squad took a bullet to the face.
Jan 09, 2019...
Illustration by Jess Rodrigues via Shutterstock.com
Israeli researchers recently made a discovery that could help develop new therapies for anxiety disorders. With up to one in three people around the world at the risk of experiencing severe anxiety, this is big news.
At the heart of the discovery, published in Cell Reports, is a previously unknown biochemical pathway underlying anxiety.
Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science biomolecular sciences department studied the role of proteins called importins in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). Importins are found in all cells. Their job is to shuttle molecules into the nucleus.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/receptive-to-stress/
May 26, 2016...
The CRFR1 receptor is used only in stressful situations
How does stress – which, among other things, causes our bodies to divert resources from non-essential functions – affect the basic exchange of materials that underlies our everyday life? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers investigated this question by looking at a receptor in the brains of mice, and they came up with a surprising answer. The findings, which recently appeared in Cell Metabolism, may in the future aid in developing better drugs for stress-related problems and eating disorders.
Oct 19, 2015...
Richard Price
The 800 guests at the Fairmont Hotel were restless when Richard Price took the stage to accept his honors from the Weizmann Institute of Science, a research university in Israel supported by numerous Chicago business executives.
The crowd already had sat through a Q&A panel of scientists talking about the Israel-based organization's work—all while the Cubs game was being broadcast from New York.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/an-end-to-the-winter-blues/
Mar 09, 2015...
Are you feeling down? Want to sleep more than usual? Is spending your evenings at home in front of the television with comfort food more appealing than going out with friends? If so, you – like 11 million other Americans – may be suffering from the winter blues.
Also aptly called SAD – for seasonal affective disorder – winter depression is thought to be linked to lack of sunlight; thus, existing treatments include sitting under a special type of lamp that mimics the sun’s rays. However, this therapy does not help vast numbers of sufferers. And even if you don’t have SAD yourself, odds are you know someone who does. The disorder tends to run in families, with women four times more likely to have it than men.
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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/courage/
Oct 13, 2010... A five-foot-long snake helped identify a brain region associated with courage, according to a study in Neuron. One at a time, researchers placed 39 snake-fearing participants and 22 control subjects at one end of a long conveyor belt. On top of the belt, the researchers secured either a (non-poisonous) corn snake or a toy bear. Participants could move the snake or toy bear closer or further by pressing a button. Meanwhile, a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner recorded the oxygen levels, which correspond to neuron activity, of various regions of their brains. When participants moved the snake closer despite their fears, activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) increased more than in other parts of the brain. When they instead moved the snake further away, or when they moved the toy bear in any direction, sgACC activity didn't spike. Previous studies have linked the sgACC with the emotions accompanying “negative autobiographical memories,” arachnophobia and other fearful responses. A better understanding of the biological basis of courage could lead to more-effective therapies for overcoming fear the researchers wrote.
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