תוכנית כנס דואט – הרצאות בדגש מחקרי 10.2.2026
בניין הסנאט, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב
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הרצאת פתיחה:
Intergenerational Continuities and Discontinuities in Adversity
Within families, adversity experienced by members of one generation is often experienced by members of the next generation as well. Poverty, psychopathology, and abuse or neglect all run in families. These intergenerational cycles of adversity reflect transmission of genetic risk, continuities across generations in exposure to environmental risks and social structural factors, and the correlated effects of genes and environments. In this talk I will briefly review the evidence for genetic and environmental pathways from parents to children. I will spend most of the talk describing conditions under which intergenerational continuities and discontinuities in various forms of adversity, including depression and child maltreatment, are likely to be observed. I will conclude with a discussion of future directions for research.
Prof. Sara Jaffee, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Prof. Sara Jaffee graduated from Oberlin College in 1994 and received a PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2001. She completed post-doctoral research at King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, where she was also a faculty member from 2008-2012. She is currently the Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Jaffee studies risk and resilience across the lifespan with a focus on exposure to family and neighborhood violence. Her research identifies factors that contribute to intergenerational continuities and discontinuities in psychopathology and evaluates the impact of social policies that are intended to disrupt cycles of adversity.
First session:
Biological aspects of parenting
The role of hair oxytocin in the mother-child relationship
Oxytocin plays a role in central social functions, such as attachment and parental caregiving behaviours. Research on salivary oxytocin highlights the importance of biological synchrony in the parent-child relationship. Yet salivary oxytocin reflects short-term changes. As the stable component of the parent-child relationship is crucial for children’s socio-emotional development, chronic oxytocin is more appropriate to examine these effects. We developed a novel method to measure hair oxytocin concentrations, reflecting cumulative secretion, to allow such examination. Here we aimed to examine the relationship between maternal and child hair oxytocin and the quality of the mother–child relationship, across various indices.
Participants were drawn from a longitudinal study of empathy development, including time points spanning before and after the onset of the Hamas-Israel war. Study 1 focuses on a pre-war timepoints and includes 28 mother-child (Maternal age: M=34.65±4.33 years; child age: M=44.57±4.15 months, 39.3% females). Quality of the mother-child relationship was assessed in a 20-minute free-play interaction coded for emotional availability, a common measure of maternal emotional responsiveness. Study 2 examined pre-war hair oxytocin levels and their interaction with maternal cognitive reappraisal in predicting child distress (emotional and behavioral problems) during war. Mother and child hair samples were collected from the crown of the head. Hair grows ~1cm per month, so analysis of 3cm closest to the scalp reflects cumulative secretion of oxytocin over three months. Oxytocin levels were analyzed using ELISA and commercially available kits (ARBOR assays).
Findings showed that maternal and child oxytocin levels are correlated (r=.55, p=.001094), with children showing higher levels than mothers (t=-3.8493, p<0.001). Maternal oxytocin positively predicted maternal emotional availability (β=0.724, p=0.007), and this effect was moderated by child’s oxytocin levels (β=−0.382, p=0.025) such that the effect was stronger when child oxytocin levels were medium-to-low. An interaction between maternal hair oxytocin pre-war and maternal cognitive reappraisal predicted children's distress levels during wartime.
Conclusion:
These results highlight the direct and intricate role of maternal and child oxytocin in dyadic emotional processes.
Prof. Florina Uzefovsky, The Duet center, Department of Psychology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Florina Uzefovsky's research aims to elucidate the molecular and psychological mechanisms underlying the development of empathy. Her work focuses on understanding how emotional and cognitive empathy develop in the context of environmental influences (e.g., parenting, the COVID-19 pandemic, war); and how biological mechanisms underlie these processes (e.g., the social hormone oxytocin and the stress hormone cortisol). In her recent work, she developed the concept of empathic disequilibrium to denote what happens when the two empathy components are not balanced. In multiple studies, she showed how empathic disequilibrium serves a role as a transdiagnostic concept.
Too Alert to Connect: Parent–Infant Co-Regulation of Hyperarousal
We live in hyper-arousing times. Hyperarousal in early life biases infants toward over-reactivity to low-level sensory cues and reduced engagement with complex social input. In this talk, I will outline a dyadic model in which infant hyperarousal and parental co-regulatory strategies continuously shape one another across autonomic, behavioral, and emerging symbolic levels. Building on a multilevel framework of parent–infant communication, and on recent work in our lab that explores autonomic signals—such as infant pupil dilation during mother–infant reunion and heart-rate synchrony during joint object exploration—I will present preliminary findings on the effects of events following the Oct 7th war on co-regulation, and interventions designed to recalibrate salience processing, enhance parent–infant synchrony, thereby potentially offering a powerful lever for reshaping developmental trajectories under the pressures of a hyper-arousing world.
Ronny Geva, PhD, is a Full Professor of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University and Head of the Developmental Neuropsychology Lab at the Gonda Brain Research Center. Trained in communication disorders at Tel Aviv University and in clinical neuropsychology at the City University of New York (Fulbright Scholar, Cum Laude), she completed postdoctoral work in developmental disabilities at Tel Aviv University. Her research spans infant neuropsychology, prematurity, attention development, parent–infant interaction, autism spectrum disorders, and neonatal outcomes, including over 100 peer-reviewed publications supported by major competitive grants from the Israel Science Foundation and international foundations. Prof. Geva has held several leadership roles, including Chair of the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan, visiting professor at UC Berkeley, and chair of national scientific committees, and she received the Bar-Ilan University Rector’s Award for Scientific Innovation. She is also an experienced mentor, having supervised numerous PhD, MA, and international trainees.
Stress Under Rest: Neural Correlates of Executive Function and Parent–Child Relations Following War-Related Trauma in Children
Background:
Exposure to war-related events constitutes a severe environmental stressor that can alter children’s emotional regulation, cognitive control, and family relationships. While prior research links stress to executive-function (EF) difficulties, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these effects—particularly within attention and control networks—remain unclear.
Purpose:
This study examined cognitive, emotional, and neurobiological differences between children exposed to war-related events and those not exposed, and explored associations between exposure level, EF, parent–child relationship quality, and resting-state functional connectivity (RS-FC) within EF and attention networks.
Methods:
Eighty-one children aged 8–14 years participated: 43 exposed to war-related events (scanned Oct 2023–Dec 2024) and 38 non-exposed peers (scanned 2021–Oct 2023). Measures included EF tasks, attachment-based parent–child assessments, and RS-fMRI connectivity analyses across the fronto-parietal, cingulo-opercular, dorsal/ventral attention, default-mode, and salience networks.
Results:
War-exposed children showed significantly lower EF performance and lower-quality parent–child relations. Between-group differences emerged in intra- and inter-network RS-FC of EF and attention systems. Within the exposed group, higher exposure correlated positively with fronto-parietal and salience connectivity, EF scores, and parent–child relation indices, suggesting compensatory or stress-related neural adaptation.
Conclusions:
Findings indicate that exposure to war-related trauma is linked to altered neurofunctional connectivity and diminished family relationship quality, reflecting both vulnerability and resilience mechanisms in children’s self-regulation and socio-emotional development. Longitudinal research should clarify how these neural changes affect long-term well-being and academic functioning.
Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology and the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where she directs the Educational Neuroimaging Group (ENIG). She also serves as an Associate Professor at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the role of executive functions and audiovisual integration in reading fluency among children with neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as in those whose difficulties stem from environmental factors such as excessive screen exposure, limited literacy environments, and trauma. Using multimodal neuroimaging and targeted interventions, she tracks the developmental trajectories of these processes from infancy and evaluates strategies to improve them. Dr. Horowitz-Kraus has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and leads several international grants on child brain and literacy development. She is Executive Chair for Education and Communication at the Flux Society, a board member of the International Mind, Brain and Education Society, and an active member in scientific societies on neuroscience, pediatrics, and reading.
Second session :
Early caregivers and intervention efforts
Enhancing Teachers’ Reflective Care Through the Duet Model: The Role of Physiological Reactivity in Tailoring Early Childhood Interventions
Early childhood teachers play a vital role in children's development, with their abilities in mentalization and emotion regulation being crucial for creating optimal classroom environments. This study investigates the DUET program, a 12-week group-based intervention for 86 early childhood teachers, examining changes in emotion regulation, mentalizing abilities, and classroom climate. The presentation will describe significant improvements following the intervention and discuss individual physiological factors, particularly vagal flexibility (VF), that moderate the intervention's effectiveness. The findings highlight the importance of tailoring intervention programs based on individual differences in physiological reactivity, emphasizing the need for effective support systems for early childhood teachers.
Dr. Yael Rozenblatt-Perkal, Dr. Noa Gueron-Sela and Prof. Naama Atzaba-Poria
The Duet center and the Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Prof. Naama Atzaba-Poria is the head of the Duet Center and the Child and Family Relationship Lab. Her research focuses on parent–child relationships in a range of stressful contexts. She is particularly interested in the processes that promote positive socio-emotional development in children, and the factors that increase the risk of maladjustment and developmental challenges. A defining aspect of her work is her research with diverse populations, including at-risk and clinical groups. She has substantial clinical and research experience working with parenting groups and dyadic interventions for young children and parents who have experienced trauma and live in stressful life conditions, with a central focus on enhancing parental reflective functioning. She has extensive experience in collecting data across varied communities and in coding observational data on parent–child interactions, including parental reflective functioning and children’s mental states.
תפקוד גננות בזמן מלחמה: הון פסיכולוגי, התנהגויות מיטיבות ורווחה נפשית
המחקר בחן כיצד גננות בישראל מתמודדות עם אתגרי מלחמת חרבות ברזל, תוך התמקדות בקשרים בין ההון הפסיכולוגי, התנהגויותיהן המיטיבות (על פי "מחוש ההורות") לבין הרווחה והתקווה שלהן. במחקר השתתפו 560 גננות מהחינוך הממלכתי והממלכתי דתי. האופטימיות, הוותק המקצועי והמסוגלות התעסוקתית נמצאו כגורמים מגנים. מעבר לכך נמצא כי התנהגויות מיטיבות יומיומיות של גננות תורמות לתחושת התקווה והרווחה שלהן. המחקר תורם להבנה התיאורטית של תפקוד צוותי חינוך במצבי משבר.
פרופ' דורית ארם היא פרופ' מן המניין באוניברסיטת תל אביב. היא עומדת בראש המעבדה לחקר הגיל הרך. מחקרה מתמקד בהבנת מקומם של המבוגרים בהתפתחותם של ילדים בגיל הרך. היא חוקרת מאפיינים של הורות מיטיבה. רבים ממחקריה מעריכים אינטראקציות של הורים וגננות עם ילדים. היא גם חוקרת אינטראקציות קריאת ספר וכתיבה ובוחנים את משמעותן להתפתחות ניצני האוריינות ולהתפתחות הרגשית-חברתית של הילדים.
ד"ר ענבר לוסיה טרינצ'ר היא מרצה וראש מערך ההכשרות הקליניות בחוג לריפוי בעיסוק בקריה האקדמית אונו. בנוסף, מרצה במכללת תלפיות לחינוך ובמכללת סמינר הקיבוצים. מחקרה מתמקד בהתפתחות קוגניטיבית בגיל הרך, בדגש על פיתוח וקידום תפקודי קשב. היא מפתחת תוכניות התערבות לילדי גן (כגון "הגן הקשוב") וחוקרת את השפעתן על מיומנויות אקדמיות, חברתיות ורגשיות. בין השאר עוסקת גם בהכשרה והעצמה של צוותים חינוכיים וגננות, תוך בחינת הקשר שבין תפקודם לבין התפתחות הילד.
Early Intervention at Scale: Developmental Benefits Revealed Through Big Data
Prof. Daphna G. Dollberg, School of Behavioral Science, The Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo
Dr. Keren Hanetz-Gamliel, School of Behavioral Science, The Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo
Introduction: Early psychological interventions are essential for supporting children’s socioemotional development. Despite evidence for their effectiveness, most evaluations rely on small samples and face challenges such as recruitment difficulties, confounding variables, and high attrition, limiting their usefulness for informing policy.
Aims: To use a theory-driven developmental perspective to evaluate, at a population level, whether the effectiveness of early intervention (ages 0-6) is associated with reduced pediatric utilization and delayed repeated referrals to mental health services in late childhood (ages 7-18).
Methods: Electronic health records of 1,151,178 children born between 2010 and 2022 were analyzed. The sample included three groups: an intervention group of 10,924 children treated in infant mental health clinics (median = 10 sessions); a matched control group of 1,127,207 children who were never referred; a second control group of 13,047 children referred but who discontinued after 1-2 sessions. Propensity score matching was applied. Analyses included repeated-measures ANCOVA and survival analysis.
Results: After three therapy sessions, pediatric visits significantly declined (from 9.8 to 8.0 on average; among high utilizers, from 27.6 to 16.4). Early intervention was associated with a 22% lower likelihood of repeated mental health referrals between ages 7-18 (hazard ration = 0.78, p< .001, 95%CI= [0.03,0.04]).
Conclusion: Early psychological intervention is associated with reduced pediatric service use in infancy and lowers repeated mental health referrals later in childhood. Using population-level data, this study provides robust real-world evidence of the large-scale associations between early intervention and later outcomes, demonstrating its relevance for policy and resource allocation.
Daphna Ginio Dollberg, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Academic College of Tel Aviv–Yaffo and Head of the Graduate Program in Developmental Psychology. A clinical and developmental psychologist and infant mental health practitioner, her research examines parental mentalizing across contexts and its role in children’s development and well-being, along with outcomes of early childhood interventions.
Keren Hanetz Gamliel, Ph.D., is a clinical child psychologist and senior lecturer in the graduate program in Clinical Psychology in the School of Behavioral Sciences at The Academic College of Tel Aviv–Yaffo, Israel. She integrate her clinical experience with her research, allowing each to inform and enrich the other. Her research examines the interrelationships among family subsystems, particularly the parenting system, and their impact on children’s development. She also studies parental mentalization as a potential protective factor that supports children’s well-being in the context of stress and adversity.
Third session:
Children’s social relationships and socio-emotional outcomes
Pathways from prenatal stress and maternal trauma to child outcomes under chronic adversity: a longitudinal study
The transgenerational impact of trauma and prenatal stress on child development is well established, yet the mechanisms through which early maternal adversity shapes children’s mental health under cumulative stressors such as the COVID‑19 pandemic and wartime exposure remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on a longitudinal cohort of 318 women in Israel recruited during early pregnancy in the first wave of the pandemic and followed until their children were approximately five years old during wartime, this study examined how maternal childhood trauma, prenatal stress, and perinatal mental health difficulties contribute to later maternal trauma responses, reflective functioning, and children’s emotional and behavioral outcomes. Across repeated assessments, higher perinatal depression, anxiety, and pandemic-related stress were associated with persistent maternal distress during war, elevated maladaptive parenting responses, all of which were later linked to greater child mental health difficulties. Maternal childhood trauma also predicted disruptions in epistemic trust and lower reflective functioning, with reduced mentalization capacity during wartime, associated with poorer child outcomes. Maternal trauma responses, particularly overprotective behaviors, and mentalization emerged as key pathways linking maternal early adversity to children’s adjustment. Together, these findings highlight the importance of early identification of at-risk families and point to maternal reflective functioning and trauma-related parenting patterns as promising intervention targets for supporting resilience in children growing up under chronic stress.
Dr. Karen Yirmiya is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, a clinical psychologist in the Postnatal Day Program at Ichilov Medical Center, and an honorary senior research fellow in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London. She received her Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University in 2022, where her research examined caregiving, neurobiological stress responsiveness, affiliation systems, and mental health among adolescents exposed to chronic war-related trauma. Her postdoctoral work at UCL included key roles in major NIHR-funded trials, including the COSI study on attachment-based interventions for perinatal mental health and the MOAM study investigating mentalization-based treatment for antisocial adult offenders. Dr. Yirmiya’s current work focuses on identifying biobehavioral mechanisms that predict the developmental trajectory of trauma-related disorders, including PTSD, complex personality pathology, and borderline features. She also works on integrating artificial intelligence into clinical and research settings, with particular emphasis on how AI can support assessment, enhance therapeutic processes, and deepen understanding of reflective functioning and trauma-related phenomena. Her research integrates longitudinal and multi-method approaches to study intergenerational transmission of trauma, perinatal mental health, reflective functioning, and epistemic trust, with a strong focus on trauma-informed interventions for high-risk families. She is also an active member of the Future Leadership Group of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) and the Section of Perinatal and Parents with Personality Disorder in the European Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ESSPD).
מערכות יחסים קרובות, חוויות הוריות מוקדמות, והבחנה רגשית בגיל ההתבגרות
הבחנה רגשית – היכולת לזהות חוויות רגשיות ספציפיות – מהווה מרכיב מרכזי ביכולת לוויסות רגשי, בתפקוד חברתי, וברווחה פסיכולוגית. בעוד שבדרך כלל הבחנה רגשית נתפסת כתכונה יציבה, בחינה של השינויים ביכולת זו מרגע לרגע ובהקשר חברתי משתנה עשויה ללמד אותנו כיצד הקשרים רגשיים וחברתיים תורמים להתפתחות הבחנה רגשית עם הגיל. בהרצאה יוצגו ממצאים מפרויקטים הבוחנים כיצד הבחנה רגשית בקרב מתבגרים משתנה בהקשרים חברתיים שונים, בדגש על קשרים עם הורים ודמויות משמעותיות נוספות. בנוסף, תוצגנה עדויות לכך שחוויות הוריות קשות בילדות המוקדמת (כגון התעללות, הזנחה, נטישה הורית או פרידה ממושכת) עשויות למתן את הקשרים בין חוויות הוריות עכשוויות ושינויים בהבחנה רגשית. ממצאים אלה מציעים כי חוויות מוקדמות מעצבות את האופן בו אינטראקציות עם ההורים משפיעות בשלבים מאוחרים יותר על תהליכים רגשיים מורכבים.
ד"ר ליאור אברמזון הינה מרצה בכירה בבית הספר למדעי הפסיכולוגיה באוניברסיטת תל אביב. את עבודת הדוקטורט שלה השלימה באוניברסיטה העברית, בהנחיית פרופ' אריאל כנפו-נעם, ועסקה בהתפתחות הבדלים בין־אישיים באמפתיה מינקות ועד גיל ההתבגרות – מחקר שזיכה אותה בפרס הדוקטורט המצטיין מטעם האגודה הבין־לאומית לחקר הילד (SRCD). לאחר מכן ביצעה השתלמות פוסט־דוקטורט באוניברסיטת קולומביה בניו יורק, שם חקרה תהליכים מוחיים והתנהגותיים של חקירה, למידה והבחנה רגשית. ליאור פרסמה מאמרים בכתבי עת מובילים וזכתה במספר מלגות ומענקים תחרותיים, ובהם מענק "בראשית" לחוקרים מבטיחים מהקרן הלאומית למדע. מחקריה מתמקדים בהתפתחות רגשית ובאופן שבו מערכות יחסים קרובות מעצבות תהליכים אלו לאורך החיים.
From Primary Caregivers to the Broader Social Environment: Expanding Perspectives on Early Social Brain Development
The ‘social brain’ encompasses the network of brain regions and functions involved in understanding and managing social interactions. Developmental neuroscience highlights early childhood as a critical period for shaping healthy social brains, thereby establishing foundational neural structures that persist and influence social cognition and behavior throughout the lifespan. As such, understanding the factors that shape the development of the healthy social brain during this early period is essential for informing interventions and policies shaping strategic directions in early childhood education and services. Existing research in this field has primarily focused on the importance of infants’ caregiving experiences within their interactions with their parents. Yet, other factors in the child’s broader social environment – such as grandparent-infant interactions, or parent couple interactions that the child observes – may also play a role in the development of the healthy social brain. The current talk will integrate data from two ongoing longitudinal studies using resting-state infant electroencephalography (EEG) and structured observational interaction tasks to examine the unique associations between various social environmental factors and infants’ socio-emotional neural development. By identifying key predictors of early socio-neural development, study findings inform interventions and policies aimed at optimizing early childhood environments, fostering long-term socio-emotional well-being.
Dr. Sofie Rousseau, The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sofie Rousseau is an assistant professor (senior lecturer) at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She received her PhD from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Haifa, Israel, as well as at Reichman University, Israel. Dr. Rousseau’s research focuses on the early caregiving environment, encompassing both home and daycare settings. She is passionate about understanding how these early caregiving environments interact with child endogenous processes such as EKG, EEG, and temperament, to shape long-term socio-cognitive and socio-emotional development. Moreover, she is committed to unravelling factors that may influence the quality of early care, particularly within the domains of caregiver psychopathology and cognitive/emotional processing. Dr. Rousseau is passionate about advanced statistical data analyses and the majority of her research benefits from innovative methodological designs (e.g., Machine Learning). Throughout her work, Dr. Rousseau aims to advance conceptual and empirical knowledge on early childhood development, with the ultimate goal of supporting the translation of research findings into evidence-based practices in early childhood care.
Early Strategies for Navigating Status: Taking Resources and Choosing Peers
Status hierarchies structure how individuals coordinate, compete, and cooperate. By the preschool years, children already track who leads, who follows, and why. They distinguish between dominance-based status (e.g., control over resources) and prestige-based status (e.g., being valued for helping or skill). Prior work shows that children make these inferences; here, we ask how these status cues shape their own social behavior.
In Study 1 (N=195, 4–7-year-olds, Israeli Jewish), we manipulated children’s dominance-based status by assigning them to win or lose a competitive task. We then observed how this relative position influenced their decisions about how to distribute resources to unfamiliar peers, and whether success with or without a social partner mattered.
In Study 2 (N=384, 6–8-year-olds, Israeli Arab), we examined prestige. Children played a cooperative game with peers who either achieved success themselves or enabled others to succeed. We assessed whom children chose to keep in their group when a new peer sought to join.
Together, these studies show how young children use information about dominance and prestige to guide their social choices within emerging hierarchies.
Dr. Avi Benozio is a developmental psychologist studying how young children make sense of social life—how they reciprocate, share, punish, and navigate hierarchies. His research combines developmental experiments with children, cross-cultural studies, comparative work with chimpanzees, and an evolutionary framework to illuminate the foundations of human morality. Dr. Benozio’s recent projects examine when children attend to dominance versus prestige and how early reciprocity is shaped by family, culture, and social context. He is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
