Dr. Oded Klavir

Affiliation Faculty / Department:
Department of Psychology, School of Psychological sciences; The Integrated Brain And Behavior Research Center – IBBRC

Academic Background:
Ph.D in Psychology with Prof. Daphna Joel – Tel-Aviv University; 1st Post-Doc Neurobiology with Prof. Rony Paz at the Weizmann Inst; 2nd Post-Doc Neurobiology with Prof. Ofer Yizhar at the Weizmann Inst. Internship (3rd Post-doc) at the max-plank institute for Psychiatry – Munich, with Prof. Alon Chen.

Research Interests:
The neural circuits of behavior – In our lab we study how the connection and interplay between and within different neural systems yield complex behaviors. We use top tier techniques such as extracellular recordings and optogenetics in freely behaving animals to answer our questions. We currently focus on the emotional system of the amygdala, ventral-hippocampus, mPFC and the behavioral control system comprised of the interconnected basal-ganglia thalamo-cortical loops with the related dopaminergic system. Behavioral-control disorders such as OCD, Obesity or addictions could be conceptualized as manifested through disease defining experience such as a strong emotional activation (in opposing valence for addiction vs anxiety disorders) which causes plasticity changes in the behavioral choice system The ability of emotions such as fear for example to drive symptoms in such disorders suggests a profound role for the neural systems underlying emotional tone in switching between behavioral control strategies.

Home Page URL:
https://klavirod.wixsite.com/klavirlab