Our lab presented key findings from our research with survivors of the Nova music festival attack (October 7, 2023) at the recent conference “Mental Health in the Context of War: The Consequences of October 7th and the War That Followed”, held in Jerusalem and hosted by the Israel Center for Addiction and Mental Health (ICAMH).
We led a symposium titled “Trauma Under Altered States: Psychological, Physiological, and Neural Consequences of Trauma Experienced Under Psychoactive Substances”, organized by Prof. Roy Salomon.

Prof. Salomon presented findings on how experiencing trauma under the influence of various psychoactive substances shaped peritraumatic processing. His talk highlighted protective effects of MDMA and potential detrimental effects of cannabis and/or alcohol. He also shared longitudinal clinical data following survivors across the first year after the attack. Prof. Roee Admon (University of Haifa) presented physiological findings identifying circadian rhythm instability as a predictor of PTSD symptom severity. PhD candidate Ophir Netzer (Salomon Lab) presented neuroimaging results from an fMRI study comparing trauma-exposed survivors and non-exposed controls.
To complement the human data, Dr. Gali Umschweif-Nevo (Hebrew University) presented preclinical research examining the effects of trauma under MDMA in a mice model- providing insight into potential neurobiological mechanisms. The symposium reflected our lab’s commitment to interdisciplinary trauma research and sparked meaningful engagement and discussion among attendees.