Adams

Ayelet Arazi 2018-2019

Institution of PhD:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Academic Discipline of PhD:
Neuroscience
PhD Advisor/s:
Prof. Ilan Dinstein
Dissertation Topic:
Neural Variability and its Relationship with Perception, Attention and Working Memory
Institution of Postdoc:
University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
Present Academic Position:
Postdoc

Ayelet was born and raised in Ma’alot, a small town in the Galilee. From a young age, she was attracted to science, mathematics and biology. During high school she volunteered with Magen David Adom and in a center for children with special needs. After two years of military service in the Air Traffic Control Unit, she started her BSc in Biomedical Engineering at Ben-Gurion University. During her final undergraduate year , Ayelet joined Prof. Ilan Dinstein’s lab, where she studied and analyzed brain activity of individuals with autism and developed new and sophisticated algorithms for analyzing EEG activity.  She completed her MA in Brain Sciences summa cum laude under the supervision of Prof Dinstein, and she is currently studying for her PhD in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Ben-Gurion University.

Ayelet specializes in the reliability of neural responses of the human brain, a new and fascinating field of neurosciences.  Using neuroimaging techniques, including EEG and fMRI, Ayelet has shown that the activity of the human brain varies dramatically from one moment to the next, even when the same sensory stimulus is presented. This brain variability/noise is tightly related to cognitive function and behavior and is found to be greater in humans with neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism. Ayelet is now leading a project in which she is using EEG to record brain activity in toddlers with autism, to examine whether excessive brain variability is an early marker of autism.

Alongside her research, Ayelet serves as a teaching assistant for undergraduate math courses in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.