Jerusalem, April 26, 2006 - An international team of interdisciplinary researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere has broken new ground and achieved international recognition for its work in providing a clearer picture in real time of what takes place during electrical/chemical changes in the cellular neural networks.

Their project, entitled "Functional Imaging of Neural Networks with Non-Linear Optics," was chosen as the leading research project from among 719 applications submitted from around the world for a Human Frontier Science Program grant of $450,000 per year over a three-year period. The science program, funded by a number of governments, provides grants for teams of scientists from different countries and disciplines who wish to combine their expertise to approach questions in fundamental biology and neuroscience through interdisciplinary cooperation.

Observation and recording of the electrical and chemical changes occurring instantaneously and on a sub-microscopic level in nerve cells is essential to furthering efforts to understand and hopefully deal with the many incapacitating neural afflictions, such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease that affect millions of people worldwide.

The participants in the award-winning neural network imaging project are Aaron Lewis, the Eric Samson Professor of Applied Science and Technology at the Hebrew University Selim and Rachel Benin School of Engineering and Computer Science and the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation; Prof. Peter B. Detwiler of the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Wash., in the U.S.; Dr. Winfried Denk of the Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany; and Prof. Mordechai Sheves, dean of the Faculty of Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

Using a non-linear (lensed) optical technique called second harmonic generation that Lewis has developed over the past two decades to monitor changes in the membrane electrical voltages in cells, the researchers have succeeded in providing a functional image of neural activity on a scale that was unachievable in the past.

Their technique has already enabled better measurement than was previously possible of the electrical and physiological changes taking place due to a variety of stimuli, including those that occur in the smallest extremities of neuronal cells called dendrites. Alterations in dendritic membranes are crucial for conveying electrical signals that are important in neuronal computation. The achievements in this area hold out promise for understanding the fundamental basis of neuronal cell physiology and signaling.

The technique of the international team of researchers "has allowed for a completely new way of monitoring signals in neuronal processes that are too small to be recorded in any other way," according to the Human Frontier Science Program.

"The connection between chemical changes taking place in cells and the voltage alterations in those c ells is still an unsolved problem," stated Prof. Lewis of the Hebrew University. "A lot is known, but there is much more to be learned. We hope that this collaboration of experts will pave the way for unraveling some of the remaining mysteries."

The techniques developed by Lewis and his partners are now being recognized and applied by scientists in their own research at leading universities around the world.

For further information:
Jerry Barach, Dept. of Media Relations, the Hebrew University, Tel: 02-588-2904, or Orit Sulitzeanu, Hebrew University spokesperson, Tel: 02-5882910 or 052-260-8016. Internet site: http://media.huji.ac.il.