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.
May 11, 2011... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—May 11, 2011—Adversity, we are told, heightens our senses, imprinting sights and sounds precisely in our memories. But new Weizmann Institute research, which appeared in Nature Neuroscience this week, suggests the exact opposite may be the case: Perceptions learned in an aversive context are not as sharp as those learned in other circumstances. The findings, which hint that this tendency is rooted in our species’ evolution, may help to explain how post-traumatic stress syndrome and other anxiety disorders develop in some people.
Oct 07, 2015... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 7, 2015—Most female mammals give birth and care for their offspring, while the males often breed with multiple partners and play little role in parenting once the mating is over. Yet researchers have had a hard time pinpointing where, exactly, in the brain these differences between the sexes are located and how they translate into behavior. The extent of “hardwired parental behavior” is hotly disputed.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/brain-s-immune-system-key-to-reversing-dementia/
Aug 18, 2015...
New research gives hope to those suffering with dementia
Leading neurobiologist Professor Michal Schwartz said the findings were “very exciting” – and showed for the first time that a diseased brain was able to fight the debilitating condition.
Scientists saw a significant drop in the symptoms of dementia when they reduced the cells that prevent the immune system from reacting.
The study by experts at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and published in journal Nature Communications, offers hope of a drug for the disease which affects about 850,000 people in Britain.
Nov 01, 2014...
A scientist looks through a microscope. (photo credit:INGIMAGE)
How the brain ages is still largely an open question – in part because this most important organ is mostly insulated from direct contact with other systems in the body, including the blood and immune systems. In research that was recently published in the journal Science, Weizmann Institute researchers Prof. Michal Schwartz of the neurobiology department and Dr. Ido Amit of the immunology department found evidence of a unique “signature” that may be the “missing link” between cognitive decline and aging. The scientists believe that this discovery may lead in the future to treatments that can slow or reverse cognitive decline in older people.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/brain-in-a-box/
Feb 22, 2012...
D. BALIBOUSE/REUTERS
Henry Markram wants €1 billion to model the entire human brain. Sceptics don't think he should get it.
It wasn't quite the lynching that Henry Markram had expected. But the barrage of sceptical comments from his fellow neuroscientists — "It's crap," said one — definitely made the day feel like a tribunal.
Officially, the Swiss Academy of Sciences meeting in Bern on 20 January was an overview of large-scale computer modelling in neuroscience. Unofficially, it was neuroscientists' first real chance to get answers about Markram's controversial proposal for the Human Brain Project (HBP) — an effort to build a supercomputer simulation that integrates everything known about the human brain, from the structures of ion channels in neural cell membranes up to mechanisms behind conscious decision-making.
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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-june-2015/
Jun 29, 2015...
Normal human colonic crypts. SMOC-2 expression (red) in the colonic stem cells demonstrates that these cells are localized in the bottoms of the crypts. Bars represent 100 micrometers (left) and 50 micrometers (right)
Recent Weizmann Institute studies are revealing a complex picture of cancer progression in which certain genes that drive tumor growth in the earlier stages get suppressed in later stages – taking a step back to move forward. Published in Oncogene, current research from the lab of Prof. Avri Ben-Ze’ev of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology suggests that the tumor cells at the invasive front of later-stage human colorectal cancer may take an even bigger step back: Some of their gene expression patterns are shared with those of healthy intestinal stem cells.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/placing-that-smell/
Apr 01, 2011...
(l-r) Drs. Hadas Lipid and Sagit Shushan, Prof. Noam Sobel, and Drs. Anton Plotkin and Elad Schneidman. Smelling good
Certain smells cause us pleasure or disgust — this might seem to be a matter of personal idiosyncrasy. But new research at the Weizmann Institute shows that odors can be rated on a scale of pleasantness, and this turns out to be an organizing principle for the way we experience smell. The findings, which appeared recently in Nature Neuroscience, reveal a correlation between the response of certain nerves to particular scents and the pleasantness of those scents. On the basis of this correlation, the researchers could tell by measuring the nerve responses whether a subject found a smell pleasant or unpleasant.
Jan 05, 2017... It’s All About Balance: Prof. Alon Chen on Stress and the Brain
Sep 05, 2017... September is World Alzheimer’s Month – a fact that highlights the disease’s unfortunate status as a major, ongoing, global health crisis. There are many intersecting reasons that Alzheimer’s disease is on the rise; ironically, most of them are also advances, such as better healthcare, prevention, nutrition, safety, and the like, all of which lead to increased longevity. And while Alzheimer’s is a disease of the aging brain, there is also a significant genetic component to this devastating illness. As of now, despite many years and many billions of dollars, there is no truly effective treatment, much less a cure.
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