Empathy Building Neuro-lab | Empathy Building Neuro-lab

Lab Director: Dr. Jonathan Levy

What drives our work is the curiosity to explore and gain new insights into mental phenomena that drive our behavior and beliefs, by examining their underlying brain mechanisms and expressions.

In the lab, we combine brain imaging, primarily using MEG, as well as fMRI and EEG, with humanistic (e.g., phenomenology) and technological (e.g., VR) approaches, to understand the connection between the brain, subjective experience, and social behavior.

If the research areas (below) fascinate you, contact us!

Fields of Interest

The Development of Empathy and Morality

What happens to empathy and morality during childhood and adolescence?

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Social polarization

Why are we unable to understand people with opinions different from ours? Why do we sometimes hate them just because they think differently?

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Empathy regulation and Polarization mitigation

What can promote empathy and decrease polarization? what may increase polarization?

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Lab Staff

Lab Staff

Recent Publications

Zebarjadi, N., Kluge, A., Glerean, E., Tassinari, M., Jääskeläinen, I. P., Jasinskaja-Lahti, I., & Levy, J. (2026). Polarized neural responses to political narratives are sensitive to small variations in self-reported political perspectives. iScience, 29(1), Article 114268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.114268

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Schwartz, L., Levy, J., Salomonski, C., Peleg, I., Hayut, O., Zagoory, O., & Feldman, R. (2025). Social interactions between attachment partners increase inter-brain plasticity. Brain Research, 1865, Article 149856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2025.149856

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Kluge, A., Zebarjadi, N., Tassinari, M., Lin, F. H., Jääskeläinen, I. P., Jasinskaja-Lahti, I., & Levy, J. (2025). Supportive but biased: Perceptual neural intergroup bias is sensitive to minor reservations about supporting outgroup immigration. Neuropsychologia, 208, Article 109068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109068

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Adler, E., Hasler, B. S., Hasson, Y., Landau, D., Baratz, G., Halperin, E., & Levy, J. (2025). Virtual regulation: Can immersive virtual reality be used to assist intergroup interventions? The moderating effect of political ideology. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 28(7), 1459-1482. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302251324892

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All Publications

ISF project: the neuro-development of empathy and morality

Updates

Lab Fair - Gonda - 2026

Together at the Lab Fair at The Leslie and Susan Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center

18/03/2026

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