About

How does the human brain represent the world?

I’m Zvi. I was born in Australia, and grew up in Israel. I live in Jerusalem, with my wife and three kids.

I completed a BSc in Physics and Computer Science, and then a PhD in Computational Neuroscience, at the Hebrew University. I went on to work as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then a Research Fellow at the Lab of Brain and Cognition at the National Intitute of Mental Health. I’m currently a Research Fellow at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. In October 2024 I will establish the Brain Representations Lab at the Gonda Brain Research Center at Bar Ilan University.

I strive to understand how the human brain represents the visual world. My research focuses on how many different factors, both internal to the brain and external, affect neural representations in visual cortex. My goal is to uncover the neural mechanisms that give rise to visual perception and to understand how endogenous brain signals shape these perceptual representations.

My approach involves linking non-invasive measurements of human brain activity (mainly functional MRI data) with perception and behavior through computational theory. The models we build are based on canonical mechanisms that are probably present in many other neural systems, so the principles we uncover can be applied across the brain.

If you are interested in the lab or have other questions, please feel free to contact me.