Daphna Joel, Associate Professor

Short Biography

Prof. Daphna Joel received her Ph.D. in psychology in Tel-Aviv University in 1998, and joined the faculty of TAU, after receiving the Alon fellowship for young Israeli scientists. Prof. Joel is presently the head of the Psychobiology graduate program at the Department of Psychology.

Fields of Interest

Prof. Joel's research interests focus on understanding the involvement of basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits in normal and abnormal behavior, using mainly animal models of psychopathology. More recently Prof. Joel has expanded her work to research questions related to brain, sex and gender, and in particular the complex interplay between sex and environment in the development of psychopathology. In addition, an ongoing study focuses on the perception of gender identity (the link to the questionnaire    :http://qacademics.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0BWfDkB9kX2tpxW

Selected publications

Joel, D. and Weiner, I. (1994) The organization of the basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits: Open-interconnected rather than closed segregated. Neuroscience, 63, 363-379

Joel, D., and Weiner, I. (1997) The connections of the primate subthalamic nucleus: Indirect pathways and the open-interconnected scheme of basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuitry. Brain Research Reviews, 23, 62-78

Joel, D., Ayalon L., Tarrasch R., Zohar O., Veenman L., Feldon J., and Weiner, I. (1998) Electrolytic lesion of globus pallidus ameliorates the behavioral and neurodegenerative effects of quinolinic acid lesion of the striatum: A potential novel treatment in a rat model of Huntington's disease. Brain Research, 787, 143-148

Joel D. and Weiner I. (2000) The connections of the dopaminergic system with the striatum in rats and primates: An analysis with respect to the functional and compartmental organization of the striatum. Neuroscience, 96, 451-474

Joel D. (2001) The open interconnected model of basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuitry and its relevance to the clinical syndrome of Huntington's disease. Movement Disorders, 16, 407-23

Joel D., and Avisar A. (2001) Excessive lever pressing following post-training signal attenuation in rats: A possible animal model of obsessive compulsive disorder? Behavioural Brain Research, 123, 77-87

Joel D., Niv Y. and Ruppin E. (2002) Actor-critic models of the basal ganglia: New anatomical and computational perspectives. Neural Networks, 15, 535-547

Joel D. (2006) Current animal models of obsessive compulsive disorder: A critical review. Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 30, 374-388

Joel D. (2006) The signal attenuation rat model of obsessive-compulsive disorder: A review. Psychopharmacology, 186, 487-503

Niv Y., Joel D., Dayan P. (2006). A normative perspective on motivation. Trends Cog. Sci. 10, 375-381.

Niv Y., Daw N.D., Joel D. and Dayan P. (2007) Tonic dopamine: Opportunity costs and the control of response vigor. Psychopharmacology, 191, 507-520.

Joel D. (2011) Male or female? Brains are intersex. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5:57 doi 10.3389/fnint.2011.00057

Albelda N. and Joel D. (2011) Current animal models of obsessive compulsive disorder: An update. Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.08.070 

Albelda N. and Joel D. (2012) Animal models of obsessive-compulsive disorder: Exploring pharmacology and neural substrates. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36, 47-63. 

Joel D. (2012) Genetic-gonadal-genitals sex (3G-sex) and the misconception of brain and gender, or, why 3G-males and 3G-females have intersex brain and intersex gender. Biology of Sex Differences. 3, 27