the team
Prof. Segev Barak - Principal Investigator
Professor, the Stephen Harper Chair of Translational Neuroscience, School of Psychological Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University
Segev received his Ph.D. in Psychology (Psychobiology) from Tel-Aviv University in 2009.
He then completed his postdoctoral training in the Gallo Research Center at the University
of California, San Francisco, and specialized in the research of drug and alcohol addiction.
Segev joined the School of Psychological Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience
as a Faculty member in 2012. Since 2021 he is the Head of the School of Psychological Sciences.
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Nofar Rahamim
Ph.D. candidate, the Sagol School of Neuroscience
Nofar completed her M.Sc. in neuroscience in 2018 in Tel Aviv University. Her M.Sc. research project, conducted in the Barak lab, focused on the effect of nicotine-related memories from adolescence on alcohol drinking in adulthood. In her current project, as a PhD candidate, she aims to decipher the role of FKBP5, an important modulator of the HPA axis, in alcohol addiction and specifically in processes related to relapse and to the formation and reconsolidation of alcohol memories.
Mirit Liran
Ph.D. candidate, Neurobiology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Faculty of Life Sciences
Mirit completed her B.Sc. in the interdisciplinary Biology and Philosophy study
of consciousness at TAU and proceeded to M.Sc. in Neurobiology and
Biotechnology, where she explored the field of antibodies engineering for
neurodegenerative diseases. Mirit joined the Barak lab as a Ph.D. candidate,
and currently, she is working on the molecular and cellular effects of
chronic alcohol consumption on myelin formation and oligodendrocytes
and their role in alcohol-drinking behaviors.
Rani Gera
Ph.D. candidate , the Sagol School of Neuroscience
Rani is a PhD student in the Sagol School of Neuroscience. He obtained his B.A. in
behavioral sciences from The College of Management Academic Studies and his MS.c.
in neurobiology from Tel Aviv University. During his MS.c. Rani led a translational study
where we developed a human procedure to alter appetitive memories by employing
counterconditioning during memory reconsolidation. In his PhD Rani focuses on the
neurobehavioral formation and manifestation of habits in humans and in particular on
the transition from goal directed to habitual action control. He is using behavioral,
psychophysiological and multi modal neuroimaging methods to characterize habit
learning at both the group and individual levels.
Matar Levin Greenwald
PhD candidate, School of Psychological Sciences
Matar completed her BSc in Psychobiology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and joined the Segev Barak lab as an MSc student in 2020. Her research focuses on the role of FGF2 in the neurobiological mechanisms of alcohol addiction, specifically at the transition from moderate (goal-directed) to compulsive and habitual alcohol drinking.
Coral Aronovici
PhD candidate, the Sagol School of Neuroscience
Coral completed her BSc studies at the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, in 2020. Her research focuses on identifying the neural networks related to alcohol relapse. In her work, Coral identifies and manipulates specific neural ensembles involved in alcohol-related memory reconsolidation in rodent models, as a part of an BSF-funded project in collaboration with Bruce Hope from NIDA-NIH.
Tamar Gordon
MSc candidate, the Sagol School of Neuroscience
Tamar completed her BSc studies at the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, and joined the Segev Barak lab as an MSc student in 2021.
In her current study, she aims to identify central and peripheral biomarkers for alcohol and drug addiction.