Project titles:

Moshe Abeles

03-5317755 abelesm@mail.biu.ac.il

1. "Eureka" in the visual domain - a MEG study

Design a test and run a pilot on finding a hidden object in a drawing.
2. Detecting changes in music -a MEG study
Study the ability to follow music rhythm and detect changes in rhythm
(e.g from 4/4 to 5/4). Good music background is preferable.
For both projects the student will have to learn E-prime for controlling the
stimuli, run a few MEG recordings with naive subjects, and do some basic
analysis of the recorded data in Matlab.
Avi Goldstein 03-5317154

goldsa@mail.biu.ac.il

1. Studying mechanisms of hemispheric spread of activation from motor

to other areas using MEG
2. Brain responses to emotional stimuli in MEG
Gil Diesendruck 03-5318639 dieseng@mail.biu.ac.il
1. Develop and pilot experimental procedures for testing adults, and
perhaps children, on the notion of "contagion" of social category
essences.
2. Reading project on "social groups" in animals
3. Reading project on "intentionality, mirror neurons, brain localization"
4. Studies on infants' and children's social categorization.
Ronny Geva 03-5318172

gevaro@mail.biu.ac.il

Students will be part of testing procedures with infants, children and parents
and will learn to observe, code and analyze behaviors. Individual projects with
the new eye tracking system at the lab are encouraged.
Roles in active projects:
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

High risk development of infants

Attention disorders
Feeding disorders
Eye tracking- program development
Executive disorders
Impulsivity
Heart rate variability- data analysis

Ido Kanter

kanter@mail.biu.ac.il

Neural networks vs chaotic lasers: the paradigm of integrate and fire neurons
is in question.
(pre requisite: open minded , mathematical background and programming in
C and/or Matlab ).
Michal Lavidor 03-5318171 Michal.Lavidor@gmail.com
1.
2.
3.
4.

Exploring TMS mechanisms (with human subjects)

Gestures and language.
The magnocellular system and word recognition.
Schizophrenia and language.

Ari Zivotofsky 03-5317796 zivotoa@mail.biu.ac.il

1. Assessing the eye scan pattern of resolving a target from background.
2. Eye movements as a measure of the influence of subliminal priming.
3. Perception of a moving bistable illusion
4. Mathematical analysis of eye-blink patterns
5. Culture effect on eye movements during viewing of asymmetric images
6. after images in color blindness
7. time perception in the elderly
8. saccadic prediction
9. the affect of primary reading language on laterality
10. possibility of other eye movement or cognitive function studies
Dana Cohen 5317138

danacoh@gmail.com,

1. Time perception and time representation

2. The deep cerebellar nuclei and their role in cerebellar processing
3. Neural correlates of working memory
Hamutal Slovin 03-5317140 slovinh@mail.biu.ac.il,
Data analysis projects, (involve Matlab programming; Note some of the
projects can be done in collaborations with Mathematics Dept. or
Engineering Dept.):
1. Decoding the content of visual stimuli from neural population activity in
the visual cortex (Minding reading).
2. Decoding behavior from neural population activity in the visual cortex
(Minding reading).
3. Brain machine interface: using cortical microstimulation to generate
artificial vision.
4. Neuronal correlates of higher visual processing: visual attention,
contour integration, motion induced blindness, binocular rivalry.
5. Microsaccade eye movements and their role in the vision.
6. Can synchronization and precise spatio-temporal patterns of neural
population carry information in visual processing?

Reading projects:
1. Higher visual processing: Motion induced blindness, understanding
consciousness via rivalry, Filling-in etc.
2. Current state of neural prosthesis and machine brain interface in
the visual cortex.
3. Reconstruction (not decoding) the visual image from brain activity.
Experimental projects:
1. Participate in imaging and electrophysiological projects of the lab.
Izhar Bar-Gad 5317141 bargadi@mail.biu.ac.il,
Data analysis projects
1. Changes in the response of neurons in the basal ganglia of a
parkinsonian primate to different stimulation patterns.
2. Changes in the oscillatory population activity in the basal ganglia in
response to stimulation.
3. Neuronal encoding of motor tics in the Tourette syndrome primate
model.
4. Neural encoding of cues, movement and reward in the basal ganglia
normal and parkinsonian primate.
5. Integrate and fire models of the basal ganglia and its response to
perturbations.
Reading projects
1. Neurophysiological basis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in
the basal ganglia, results from humans and animals models.
2. Information encoding in the basal ganglia of the primates. Which
functional domains are encoded and using which parameters?
Alon Korngreen 5318224 korngra@mail.biu.ac.il,
1. Optimizing kinetic models using genetic algorithms (requires
programming in C and/or Matlab)
2. Building a basic Matlab toolbox for compartmental modeling.
3. Participating in experimental projects (patch clamping channels in
dendrites).
4. Participating in an exciting project building and programming Bar-Ilan's
first desktop supercomputer.
5. Investigating how magnetic fields affect single neurons in the rat
central nervous system.
6. FREE! Each zuta project student will be eligible to have lunch with the
lab people everyday.....
7. FREE! Nervous breakdown guaranteed after project.

Eva Gilboa-Schechtman 5318744 evagilboa@gmail.com

Experimental studies:
1. MEG study of processing of facial expressions in social anxiety
2. Executive attention (esp. task switching) as influenced by individual
differences in dominance and affiliation
3. Cognitive measures of implicit self-views
4. Individual differences in regulation following social rejection
Reading projects
1.
2.

Processing signals of dominance in face and body

Individual differences in executive function.

Yoram Louzoun 5317610 ylouzoun@gmail.com

1. Detection of immune mechanisms leading to multiple sclerosis
2. Modeling the interplay between neuron activity and connectivity
3. Emergence of global behavior from simple agents dynamics
Sharon Armon-Lotem 03-5317159

armonls@mail.biu.ac.il

1. Specific Language Impairment in bilingual populations: distinctive

linguistic indicators - analysis of behavioral data
2. Bilingualism and cognitive abilities test development and testing
3. Specific Language Impairments and cognitive abilities test
development and testing
4. First language acquisition: the use of passive in child Hebrew - testing
and analysis of behavioral data
5. Children's interpretation of logical words (e.g. some, every, and, or) and
numbers - testing and analysis of behavioral data
Michal Ben-Shachar michal.benshachar@gmail.com,
1. Imaging white matter tracts in the language system: analysis of
diffusion tensor imaging data from adults and children
2. Pilot a battery of behavioral language tests for children
3. Programming: write a GUI for magnitude estimation experiments in
Hebrew
4. Design and run self paced reading experiment of parasitic gaps
David Anaki 03-5317782 anakid@mail.biu.ac.il
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2.
3.
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5.

Face and object perception.

Influence of personality traits in perceiving facial expressions.
Facial representations in long-term memory.
Automatic and attentional aspects in face perception.
Geriatric neuropsychlogy.

Avy Susswein

03-5318388

avy@mail.biu.ac.il

1. Behavioral experiments examining whether the amino acid L-arginine

affects feeding behavior. Arginine is a precursor of nitric oxide, an
unconventional neurotransmitter. Our laboratory has good evidence
that dietary arginine affects feeding in Aplysia via nitric oxide. We want
to examine this hypothesis in greater detail.
2. Continuing to build a simulation of the central pattern generator
controlling Aplysia consummatory feeding behaviors. Early published
simulations were based on incomplete data describing the biophysical
properties of the component neurons. Much more experimental data is
now available, and the simulations can be extended and improved.
Joel Walters

03 -5318236 waltej49@gmail.com

1. Data collection: The role of lexis in narrative production in EnglishHebrew, Russian-Hebrew preschool children
2. Development of Stimulus Materials: Lexical processing of concrete,
abstract and emotion words in English-Hebrew bilinguals
3. Reading project: Directionality effects (L1-L2/L2-L1) in cross-language
translation and semantic priming and bilingual codeswitching.
Miriam Faust 03-5318594

faustm@mail.biu.ac.il

1. Linguistic and neural differences between persons who are successful

and unsuccessful in foreign language learning
2. How the brain processes metaphoric language
3. Brain and Creativity
4. Development aspects of brain and language
5. Metaphor and ambiguity processing in various clinical populations
Eshkol Rafaeli

erafaeli@barnard.edu

1. Human mirror neuron system (HMNS) activity in borderline personality

disorder - literature review and analysis of pilot data
2. Circadian rhythms in self-reported mood data - developing analysis
syntax in SAS or other language
Gal Yadid
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2.
3.
4.

03-5318123

yadidg@mail.biu.ac.il

Search for new treatments for depression and drug of abuse

Meta - analysis of data for early prediction of antidepressant effects
DBS as an antidepressant treatment
Synchronization of physiological, behavioral and neurochemical data
from animal models of depression and addiction