🧠 Head of Ben-Zion Resilience & Recovery Lab 💪

School of Public Health, Faculty of Social Welfare & Health Sciences, University of Haifa

🎓 Short Bio

With a multidisciplinary background in biology, psychology, and neuroscience, my research investigates the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying stress vulnerability and resilience. My goal is to inform novel treatments for stress– and anxiety-related disorders, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

I study behavioral, cognitive, physiological, and neural responses to naturalistic experimental tasks in both healthy and clinical populations. My work integrates advanced statistical and computational methods, grounded in a strong commitment to transparent, reproducible science, and enriched by extensive interdisciplinary collaboration.

🔬 My Postdoctoral Research at Yale University

My postdoctoral research at the Yale School of Medicine bridged two domains of neuroscience, carried out across two labs: (1) Decision Neuroscience Lab (PI: Ifat Levy) — exploring the neural mechanisms of decision-making under uncertainty; and (2) PTSD Research & Treatment Lab (PI: Ilan Harpaz-Rotem) — examining the neurobiological and psychological effects of trauma exposure to advance treatment strategies. My current research at Yale spans three complementary lines of inquiry:

1. Neural computations of stress and anxiety:
I examine how neural computations of value and uncertainty shape learning, memory, and decision-making processes, in the context of rewards and punishments, and alterations in these computations relate to anxiety and stress-related symptoms.

2. Theory-driven process-based PTSD subtypes:
I investigate theory-driven PTSD subtypes using objective neurobehavioral measures, with the aim of improving diagnostic accuracy and optimizing treatment outcomes.

3. Computational psychiatry and AI models:
I apply tools from computational psychiatry to explore the behavior of large language models (e.g., ChatGPT), using them to generate insights into human learning and decision-making mechanisms, as well as mental health applications.

🎓 My Doctoral Research at Tel Aviv University

Over the past decade, I completed my academic and research training at the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, where I earned both a B.Sc. in Biology, Psychology & Neuroscience and a direct-track Ph.D. in Neuroscience. As part of my doctoral work at the Sagol Brain Institute (PI: Talma Hendler), I led a large-scale longitudinal fMRI study of recent trauma survivors during the first critical year following trauma (Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, 2015–2020, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health R01 Grant).

This work linked clinical symptom trajectories with alterations in cognitive function and brain structure and function, helping to elucidate the neurobiological foundations of traumatic stress responses, and advancing our understanding of both PTSD pathogenesis and the mechanisms of resilience and recovery. Findings were published in leading journals in neuroscience and psychiatry, including The American Journal of Psychiatry, Molecular Psychiatry, and Biological Psychiatry (see Peer-Reviewed Publications page).

📬 Feel free to reach out at ziv.ben-zion@yale.edu or zbenzion@univ.haifa.ac.il