Michal Assaf, M.D.

Senior Research Scientist

Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital

Assistant Professor Adjunct

Yale University School of Medicine

T: 860.545.7792 | F: 860.545.7797 | E: massaf@harthosp.org

Dr. Michal Assaf has studied mental illnesses by implementing cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging concepts. She earned her M.D. in 2001 at Tel Aviv University, following a clinical internship at the Edith Wolfson Hospital in Israel. After completing a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Assaf has joined the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center at the Institute of Living as a postdoctoral associate of the Yale School of Medicine. In 2004, she was jointly appointed as a senior research scientist at the Institute of Living and as an assistant professor adjunct at Yale University. Dr. Assaf is currently researching autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as part of three major projects: 

• Social Cognition focusing on different brain mechanisms involved in social cognition processes, such as motivation and mentalization, and their association with schizophrenia and autism.

• Semantic Memory focusing on feature binding abnormalities in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and the relationship between semantic processing and formal thought disorder.

• Normal Aging and Memory focusing on genetic markers.

Dr. Michal Assaf is a licensed physician in Israel and a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Autism Research, the Organization of Human Brain Mapping and the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.

Assaf M, Rivkin P, Kuzu C, Calhoun V, Kraut M, Groth K, Yassa M, Hart J and Pearlson GD (2005). Abnormal Object-Recall and Anterior Cingulate Overactivation Correlate with Formal Thought Disorder in Schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, In-press.

Assaf M, Calhoun V, Kuzu C, Kraut M, Rivkin P, Hart J and Pearlson GD (2006). Neural Correlates of the Object Recall Process in Semantic Memory. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, In-press.

Assaf M, Yassa MA, Pearlson GD and Schretlen DJ. (2003) Demographic and Cognitive Correlates of Performance on the Iowa Gambling Task in a Community Sample of Adults. EPA 2003 Annual Meeting (paper presentation).

Assaf M, Palti D, Ben-Shachar M, Hendler T, and Leitner Y. (2003) Cerebellar Representation of Linguistic Processing: Task and Modality Effects.  Organization of Human Brain Mapping 2003 Annual Meeting.

Assaf M, Johnson NR, Kahn I, Yeshurun Y, Hendler T, and Pearlson GD. (2004) Mind Games, Emotions and Decision Making: A Functional MRI Study. Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2004 Annual Meeting

Kuzu C, Rivkin P, Pearlson GD, Hart J, Calhoun V, Kraut M, Yassa M, and Assaf M. (2004) fMRI Activation during a Feature-Binding Semantic Task in Schizophrenia. 2004 Americal Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting.

Assaf M, Kuzu C, Rivkin R, Calhoun V, Kraut M, Yassa M, Hart J Jr., and Pearlson GD. (2004) fMRI Evidence for Abnormal Semantic Processing in Schizophrenia. Society of Biological Psychiatry 2004 Annual Meeting.

Assaf M, Kuzu C, Kraut M, Groth K, Calhoun V, Benios T, Rivkin R, Hart J Jr., and Pearlson GD. (2005) Functional MRI Evidence for Semantic Far-Spreading Activation in Schizophrenia Patients with Formal Thought Disorder. Schizophrenia Bulletin (ICOSR Proceedings).

Assaf M, Johnson MR, Kahn I, Hendler T, and Pearlson GD. (2005) Mentalization of a human opponent versus a computer opponent in a social competitive game: an fMRI study. Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2005 Annual Meeting Proceedings.

Benios T, Assaf M, Groth K, Giuliani N, and Pearlson GD. (2005) The Effect of Aging on Brain Activity during an fMRI Figural Memory Task. Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2005 Annual Meeting Proceedings.

For a demonstration of the Domino paradigm (2.7 MB, requires Flash player), click here.