News & Events

BFI fellow Yuval Nir's Review in Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Dreams are a remarkable experiment in psychology and neuroscience, conducted every night in every sleeping person. They show that the human brain, disconnected from the environment, can generate an entire world of conscious experiences by itself. Content analysis and developmental studies have promoted understanding of dream phenomenology. In parallel, brain lesion studies, functional imaging and neurophysiology have advanced current knowledge of the neural basis of dreaming. It is now possible to start integrating these two strands of research to address fundamental questions that dreams pose for cognitive neuroscience: how conscious experiences in sleep relate to underlying brain activity; why the dreamer is largely disconnected from the environment; and whether dreaming is more closely related to mental imagery or to perception.

Download the article, Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology

Israel’s Academic Exodus in the 21st Century

The Brainpower for Israel Fund at Beth Emet Free Synagogue is pleased to announce that Prof. Dan Ben-David, Director of The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, will speak at Beth Emet (1224 Dempster Street, Evanston, IL) on Friday evening 6:30pm, January 16, 2009.

The topic will be “How Can We Help Prevent the Brain Drain from Israel?” He will explore the issues related to higher education in Israel and the flight of Israel’s academic researchers to the United States.

Following Prof. Ben-David’s presentation, we plan to have a discussion panel that will include representatives of the Brainpower for Israel Fund and Brainpower for Israel Postdoctoral Fellows.