Critical Periods in Brain Development

Prof. Cristina Alberini is the Co-President of the International Neuropsychoanalytic society. She is a researcher and a psychoanalyst. Her research work includes looking for gene functions in different areas of the brain, which are recruited in long term memory formation. She is looking for the biological mechanisms and neural circuits for memory formation during development

Prof. Shaul Harel, formerly Charlie Hilsberg, lost his shadow at the age of 5, when he was torn from his family. He escaped the Auschwitz crematories thanks to the Jewish and Belgian undergrounds. His research work came out from that inferno.His story is one of resilience after trauma, the story of a man who grew up in hiding and in various orphanages in Belgium, his life in Israel, his injury during the military service, his medical training, and his career as a leading children neurologist in Israel and abroad. That awful Trauma, with his enormous capabilities and never-ending efforts made him one of the best neurologists in the world. He turned his investigation to the kids who have growth retardation, to academic research and to clinical work. He worked clinically and into serious academic research of critical periods.

Dr. Irith Barzel-Raveh is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and supervisor in Psychotherapy. She is the Founder and Chairwoman of the Israeli Neuropsychoanalytic Society, and a founder member and a Board member of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. She coordinated the course “Normalcy in Infancy” at the Tel Aviv University Medical School. She taught Infant Observation in collaboration with Tavistock to a range of professionals from multiple disciplines. She was a head clinical psychologist of the Neuropediatric infant development center for the Tel-Aviv area and was head of 26 well-baby transdisciplinary clinics. She is a specialist in Professor Heinz Prechtel’s method of functional assessment of fetus General Movement (functional assessment of the brain). She is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics at Bar-Ilan University, where she is working on her dissertation under the guidance of Dr. Aner Govrin and Professor Mark Solms. She also works at her private clinic.