Principal Investigator
Dr Noham Wolpe, MD PhD MRCPsych
I am a psychiatrist and researcher generally interested in linking subjective experiences to objective, performance-based measures and exploring the physiological mechanisms that mediate this relationship. I am currently a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. Prior to this, I was a National Institute of Health Research Academic Clinical Fellow in general psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. I started my academic work as a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where I completed a PhD and a post-doctoral position under the supervision of professors James Rowe and Daniel Wolpert.
Current members (alphabetically ordered)
Dr Daniel Harlev
Daniel is a senior psychiatrist who has worked at Rambam mental health department. He trained as a medical doctor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. For his postdoctoral ISF Mavri fellowship in the lab, Daniel is examining the hypothesis that depression in young and older adults differ both in terms of patient experience and in terms of the underlying mechanisms.
Denise Jaeschke
Denise is an MSc student at the Sagol International Neuroscience programme. She is interested in how ruminations in depressive symptoms - the negative repetitive thoughts about one's past experiences or future worries - influence cognitive performance and the experience of mental effort. Prior to her work in the lab, Denise completed her BSc in psychology at Ulm University, Germany.
Hiddai Oren
Hiddai is an MSc student at the Sagol Clinical Neuroscience Programme. He is interested in how computational models of belief updating can be applied to understand clinical conditions. Previously, Hiddai completed his Dual BSc degree in Computer Science and Chemistry specializing in Biophysics and Bioinformatics at Ben Gurion University.
Lauren Rachel Cohen
Lauren is an MSc student in the Sagol International Neuroscience Program in the Cognitive Track. She is interested in how motivational and cognitive processes interact in psychopathology, particularly in the context of depression and anhedonia. Lauren completed her BSc in Psychology at Emory University, where she became interested in the mechanisms linking reward processing and mental health.
Nitsan Schwarz
Nitsan is an MSc student at the Sagol International Neuroscience programme. She is interested in the interplay between mental effort, perception, and mental health conditions. Nitsan previously completed her BSc at the University of California Santa Barbara, and since then has worked in clinical mental health settings.
Noa Ben Asher
Noa is an MSc student at Sagol Clinical Neuroscience programme. She is interested in how people update their beliefs about their self-efficacy, using computational tools to model this process. Noa previously completed her BSc in Cognitive and Brain Sciences combined with Psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Shulamit Eruhimovich
Shulamit is a Ph.D. student at the Sagol School of Neuroscience. Her research focuses on how context influences the experience of effort. Specifically, she studies how the tendency to avoid aversive stimuli shapes both the willingness to exert effort and the way effort is exerted, in the general population and among individuals with major depressive disorder and apathy. In addition, Shulamit is interested in how the brain computes the subjective value of effort in the context of aversive stimuli compared to rewards. She previously completed a B.A. in Behavioral Sciences at Ariel University and an M.A. in Cognitive Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Past members and alumni
Bowen Xiao (Eddie) - Eddie was a visiting student in the lab, interested in using decision-making models to understand the role of uncertainty in effort perception.
Dana Greenberg - Dana was an MSc student at the Sagol neural computation and brain modelling programme.
Ela Herzberg - Ela was a programmer in the lab, after finishing her MSc at Sagol Clinical Neuroscience programme.
Frank Hezemans - Frank was a former PhD student in the lab.
Gal Nadler - Gal was a software developer in the lab.
Ido Mellul - Ido was an MSc student at the Sagol neural computation and brain modelling programme.
Jakub Nagrodzki - Jakub was an academic foundation clinician.
Moti Salomon - Moti was the head of IT in the lab.
