Where Behavior and Brain Intersect

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Where a n d I n t e r s e c t Prof. Talma Hendler in the lab with TAU medical school graduate and PhD candidate, Dr. Avner Thaler 2
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY REVIEW Summer 2010 Cancer, emotions, schizophrenia and the human soul may seem unrelated to one another as fields of study, but they all have one thing in common: The human mind. By integrating psychology into brain studies and other disciplines, TAU researchers are revealing the innermost workings of the mind and redefining the field for future generations of scientists. Only one thing about the human soul is certain: No one has found it with a microscope. But with the use of advanced tools, scientific research is increasingly being employed to discover what was once considered unknowable. By analyzing brain activity through an MRI scan, scientists are pursuing age-old questions about consciousness – how it can be defined in biological terms, and how our emotions manifest in the brain. Then philosophers step in, and ask: Can we truly define consciousness from a scientific perspective? TAU is advancing this debate with an interdisciplinary BA study track in consciousness research, a collaboration of the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities with the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences. This advanced track designated for particularly talented students consists of a double major in biology and philosophy, with a concentration on the theme of consciousness. This is just one of several new interdisciplinary frameworks at TAU that expand the limits of the traditional social science field of psychology to incorporate ideas and technologies from six other faculties – humanities, arts, life sciences, medicine, exact sciences and engineering. “Mind and brain are not the same thing,” stresses Prof. Ehud Gazit, Vice President for Research and Development at TAU. “They are entirely different conceptual frameworks. That is what is so special about our approach at TAU. We are searching for the deepest connections between the two – on the philosophical, biological, molecular and atomic levels.” Psychobiology: Key to unlocking disease Emerging as a cutting-edge interdisciplinary field, psychobiology is instrumental in the development of revolutionary treatments for mental illness and cancer, as well as new ways of analyzing mechanisms in the brain. Prof. Daphna Joel, head of TAU’s Psychobiology Program and a former head of the PhD Program in Neuroscience, says, “Through our research, we try to strip down the connection between behavior and the brain to its biological nuts and bolts.” In the area of schizophrenia, for example, the first behavioral signs of the disorder are being investigated at TAU using magnetic resonance im- By Ilana Teitelbaum 3
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