Where Behavior and Brain Intersect

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
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