University of Haifa

About: University of Haifa is a education organization based out in Haifa, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 7558 authors who have published 27141 publications receiving 711629 citations. The organization is also known as: Haifa University & Universiṭat Ḥefah.

The psychological impact of impending forced settler disengagement in Gaza: Trauma and posttraumatic growth

Abstract: The Israeli government's decision to remove settlers in the Gaza Strip forcibly produced a situation of traumatic stress, resulting from confrontation and conflict for settlers. The authors examined the effects of the Gaza disengagement, that occurred following prolonged terrorist exposure, on rates of probable major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis in a representative sample of Gaza settlers (N = 190). Predictors of probable MDD in multivariate models were being female, and experiencing greater economic and psychosocial resource loss. Predictors of probable PTSD were being older and experiencing greater psychosocial resource loss. Posttraumatic growth was significantly related to a reduction in the odds of having probable PTSD. This latter finding is interpreted within our conceptualization of action-focused growth.

Do Foreigners Deserve Rights? Determinants of Public Views Towards Foreigners in Germany and Israel

Abstract: In the present paper we compare public views regarding the equality of rights foreigners deserve in Germany and Israel using data from two national representative samples (ALLBUS in Germany, 1996 and Attitudes Towards Minorities Survey in Israel, 1999). The data reveal that anti-immigrant sentiments (as expressed by the denial to grant rights to foreign workers) are more pronounced in Israel than in Germany. These findings hold even after controlling for individual socio-economic and demographic characteristics and differential levels of threat. In both countries, support for foreigners' rights tend to increase with level of education and to decline with age. In Germany, support for rights is also affected by income (positively), right-wing orientation (negatively), and residence in East Germany (negatively). In both countries, the most important determinant of support for foreigners' rights is the perception of threat. The greater the threat the more likely citizens are to deny rights to labour migrants. It should be noted, however, that the impact of threat on attitudes towards foreigners'rights as well as the impact of political orientation (right-wing) is more pronounced in Germany than in Israel. While threat is the more important determinant of anti-foreigner sentiments in both societies, it only partially intervenes between individual characteristics and attitudes toward foreigners' rights

Repeated noxious stimulation of the skin enhances cutaneous pain perception of migraine patients in-between attacks: clinical evidence for continuous sub-threshold increase in membrane excitability of central trigeminovascular neurons

Abstract: Recent clinical studies showed that acute migraine attacks are accompanied by increased periorbital and bodily skin sensitivity to touch, heat and cold. Parallel pre-clinical studies showed that the underlying mechanism is sensitization of primary nociceptors and central trigeminovascular neurons. The present study investigates the sensory state of neuronal pathways that mediate skin pain sensation in migraine patients in between attacks. The assessments of sensory perception included (a) mechanical and thermal pain thresholds of the periorbital area, electrical pain threshold of forearm skin, (b) pain scores to phasic supra-threshold stimuli in the same modalities and areas as above, and (c) temporal summation of pain induced by applying noxious tonic heat pain and brief trains of noxious mechanical and electrical pulses to the above skin areas. Thirty-four pain-free migraine patients and 28 age- and gender-matched controls were studied. Patients did not differ from controls in their pain thresholds for heat (44+/-2.6 vs. 44.6+/-1.9 degrees C), and electrical (4.8+/-1.6 vs. 4.3+/-1.6 mA) stimulation, and in their pain scores for supra-threshold phasic stimuli for all modalities. They did, however, differ in their pain threshold for mechanical stimulation, just by one von Frey filament (P=0.01) and in their pain scores of the temporal summation tests. Increased summation of pain was found in migraineurs for repeated mechanical stimuli (delta visual analog scale (VAS) +2.32+/-0.73 in patients vs. +0.16+/-0.83 in controls, P=0.05) and repeated electrical stimuli (delta VAS +3.83+/-1.91 vs -3.79+/-2.31, P=0.01). Increased summation corresponded with more severe clinical parameters of migraine and tended to depend on interval since last migraine attack. The absence of clinically or overt laboratory expressed allodynia suggests that pain pathways are not sensitized in the pain-free migraine patients. Nevertheless, the increased temporal summation, and the slight decrease in mechanical pain thresholds, suggest that central nociceptive neurons do express activation-dependent plasticity. These findings may point to an important pathophysiological change in membrane properties of nociceptive neurons of migraine patients; a change that may hold a key to more effective prophylactic treatment.

Common and unique neural correlates of autobiographical memory and theory of mind

Abstract: There is an inconsistency regarding the relationship between thinking about personal past experiences during autobiographical memory (AM) and thinking about other people's mental states during theory of mind (ToM). Neuroimaging studies of AM and ToM consistently report overlap in the brain regions recruited. Lesion data, however, show that amnesic people with AM impairment can have intact ToM, suggesting that distinct neural mechanisms support these abilities [Rosenbaum, R. S., Stuss, D. T., Levine, B., & Tulving, E. Theory of mind is independent of episodic memory. Science,318, 1257, 2007]. The current fMRI study examined the functional and neural correlates of remembering one's own experiences in response to personal photos (AM condition) and imagining others' experiences in response to strangers' photos (ToM condition). AM and ToM conditions were matched in terms of content and vividness, and were compared directly and to a common baseline. Analyses revealed common activity within frontal and temporal-parietal regions, yet midline structures exhibited greater activity during AM. More specific analyses of event construction and detail elaboration revealed unique activation of the right hippocampus during AM construction, and of lateral regions, such as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) during ToM elaboration. Moreover, a region of left hippocampus/perirhinal cortex appeared to be driven by event vividness. Thus, differences in AM and ToM emerge when a common baseline is used and temporal dynamics are taken into account. Furthermore, the right TPJ and related lateral regions, and not the hippocampus, may be needed for ToM, given that this ability is intact in amnesic people.