SCOPUS: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=13604685500
I am Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome. Since 2005 I am affiliated with the Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab headed by Prof. Aglioti at the Department of Psychology and the Social Neuroscience Lab at the research-oriented hospital IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation of Rome, where I coordinate research using brain stimulation and human kinematics methods. I have been member of the Sapienza “Cognitive Social and Affective Neuroscience PhD” board since 2011 at the Department of Psychology, Sapienza University. Since 2011 I held the courses of Neuropsychology, Psychobiology of atypical development, Experimental methods in social neuroscience at Master Degree level at the Department of Psychology, Sapienza University. In 2018 I received the National scientific qualification (ASN) as Full Professor (11/E1, SSD M-PSI/02).
Professional history
• 2018 – present: Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome
• 2015 - 2018: Assistant Professor (RTD-B), Dept. of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome
• 2014 - 2015: Research Fellow, Dept. of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome
• 2011 - 2014: Assistant Professor (RTD-A), Dept. of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome
• 2009 - 2011: Research Fellow, Dept. of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome
• 2005 - 2008: PhD in “Cognitive Plasticity and Rehabilitation”, Dept. of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome
Research interests:
My research interests fall within the broad field of cognitive, affective and social neuroscience. My work focuses on the neural correlates of body and action visual and motor representations, predictive action simulation, embodied emotions, conscious vision, neuroaesthetics, motor error detection, interpersonal motor interactions, joint-actions, and the way these functions are shaped by psychological traits/states and culture. By adopting an embodied cognition perspective I focused my research on how “low-level” perceptual and sensorimotor skills shape higher-order perceptuo-cognitive functions and, vice-versa, what are the neurophysiological effects of higher-order cognition on “lower-level” perceptual and sensorimotor body representations. I study these topics mainly through non-invasive brain stimulation methods (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and transcranial Direct Current Stimulation) in healthy individuals, elite musicians, athletes and brain-damaged patients. In more recent years I have also studied the behavior of individuals by recording the kinematics of their movements when engaged in realistic interpersonal motor interactions. My future research will focus on the perceptual, motor, affective and neurocognitive features that make our perceptual interpretation, and motor interaction with the world, intrinsically predictive. My research will shift from an areal-based approach to an inter-areal perspective in order to study the causal contribution of the anatomo-functional connectivity betweeen distant body and action related brain areas for the development and control of different socio-cognitive affective and motor functions.
Main national and International research collaborations:
I have developed my research at the Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome and at the hospital IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, in the laboratories leaded by Prof. Aglioti. My research on the neural underpinnings of body form and body action perception and on the neural correlates of emotional body language (coll. Prof Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University and Maastricht University, the Nederlands) was mainly carried out using brain stimulation methods (spTMS, ppTMS, event-related on-line interferential and off-line inhibitory TMS) and has shown the causal contribution of visual occipito-temporal, temporal and premotor cortices to body form, action and emotion representation (coll. Prof. Patrick Haggard, UCL, London, UK), respectively (see publication list). My research focused also on the kinematics of joint actions in emotionally realistic social environments (Prof. Beatrice de Gelder, Prof. Martin Giese) and has been performed in collaboration with Dr. Giovanni Pezzulo (ISTC, CNR, Rome) for the development of neural models describing the ways in which individuals change their kinematic behavior according to the knowledge they implicitly acquire during the interaction. Previous collaborations regarded projects on the neural correlates of action language representation (Prof. Manuel Carreiras, Prof. Horacio A. Barber, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain). I have collaborated with national colleagues especially on body and action visuo-motor neural representations (Dr. Cosimo Urgesi, University of Udine, Prof. Valentina Moro, University of Verona), predictive action coding and action perception (Prof.Cosimo Urgesi, University of Udine, Prof. Alessio Avenanti, University of Bologna), visual perception of facial and bodily emotional expressions in prosopoagnosic patients (Prof. Valentina Moro, University of Verona).
• Prof. De Gelder (Maastricht University, Netherlands)
• Prof. Haggard (UCL, United Kingdom)
• Prof. Giese (Tilburg, Germany)
• Dr. Pezzulo (ISCT, CNR, Italy)
• Prof. Moro (Università di Verona, Italy)
• Prof. Avenanti (Università di Bologna, Italy)
• Dr. Urgesi (Università di Udine, Italy)
• Prof. D’Ausilio (Università di Ferrara, Italy)
• Dr. Calvo-Merino (City University of London, United Kingdom)
• Dr. Gaigg (City University di Londra)
• Prof. Bekkering (Università di Nejimegen. Netherlands)
• Prof. Lamm (Università di Vienna)
• Prof. Carreiras (Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language)
• Prof. Barber (University of La Laguna, Spain)
Research funding:
As PI:
• 2021: Sapienza University, Roma, Sapienza Medie Attrezzature (“La Stimolazione Magnetica Transcranica ripetitiva (rTMS) in un approccio multi-tecnica per lo studio e la modulazione delle basi cerebrali della percezione, cognizione, dei processi sociali, della personalità e dei disturbi psicologici.”), 71980 euro
• 2018: Sapienza University, Rome, grant for the international mobility of PhD students.
• 2016: Ministry of Heath, Ricerca Finalizzata, Progetto Giovani Ricercatori 2016 (“Promoting the recovery of higher-order motor functions in brain damaged patients. A novel approach based on the combination of virtual reality and non-invasive brain stimulation”), 350000 euros.
• 2016: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (“ElectroEncephaloGraphic correlates of body and action visual perception, their functional role and modulation through non-invasive brain stimulation.”), 8000 euros+ 1 year funded Post-Doc position 22800 euros
• 2016: Individual reseach grant (MIUR), 3.000 euro
• 2013: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (“Neuroscience of inter-subjectivity: from motor interactions to social impairments”), 2000 euros
• 2012: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (“I see it this way: personality and neural foundations of emotionally positive conscious visual perception”), 12000 euros
• 2011: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (“Neural and personality foundations of predictive motor interactions in healthy and damaged brains”), 5000 euros + 1 year funded Post-Doc position 22800 euros
As co-PI:
• 2020: Marie-Curie Global Fellowship (“InteroceptionAction - Unraveling the role of interoceptive abilities in aesthetic appreciation of movement.” PI Andrea Orlandi)
• 2020: BIAL Foundation “Beyond your own body: extending the bodily self to the neuroaesthetics of interactions”, 49.500,00 euros
• 2014: Bial Foundation Fellowship Programme (Portugal) ("Measuring the Self: behavioural and neural correlates of bodily awareness"), PI PhD Tidoni E, 47000 euros
As team member:
• 2020: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (“Cerebro-cerebellar predictive systems for interpersonal interactions: integrating motion kinematics, autonomic monitoring, fMRI and lesions approaches in virtual reality”), 40.000,00 euros + 1 year funded Post-Doc position 23.787,00 euro
• 2018: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (““SHARETRAIN”: an integrated international, EU-based, network for innovative training in social cognitive and affective neuroscience”), 30.000 euros
• 2017: Sapienza University, Rome, Sapienza Ricerca (“To the heart of the matter: Brain-body pathways to perseverative cognition”), 15.000 euros + 1 year funded Post-Doc position 23.750 euros
• 2013: The Cogito Foundation (“Embodied (e)motions: brain mechanisms and their socio-cultural modulation”), PI Avenanti A
• 2011: Bial Foundation Fellowship Programme (Portugal) (“The Spiritual Brain: neurophysiologic investigations of Self-transcendence and Spirituality”), PI Prof Aglioti SM, 41000 euros
• 2010-2013: IIT SEED (“Predictive Action-perception Resonance and Mental Simulation (PARMS)”), PI Prof. Aglioti SM, 320000 euros
• 2010-2013: FP7 Tango (“Emotional interaction grounded in realistic context (TANGO)”), PI Prof. de Gelder, 2784999 euros
• 2010-2015: FP7 VERE (“Virtual Embodiment and Robotic Re-Embodiment (VERE)”), PI Prof SlaterM, 11100000 euros
• 2009: PRIN (“Meccanismi e basi nervose dell’attenzione riflessa condivisa e sua modulabilità sociale”), PI Prof. Berlucchi, co-PI Prof. Aglioti.
Research awards and honors:
• 2011 Sapienza University, Ricerca under 40: Research title “Bodies in the brain: body identity and actions in the visual and motor system”.
Editorial activity and reviewing:
• 2020: Associate Editor for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, section Brain imaging and Stimulation (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/sections/brain-imaging-and-stimulation#editorial-board)
• 2011: Ad hoc Review Editor for Frontiers in Emotion Science
• Ad-hoc reviewer for peer-reviewed ISI journals (e.g. Current Biology, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Neuroscience, Cortex, Cerebral Cortex, European Journal of Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Experimental Brain Research, Behavioral Brain Research, PLOS ONE, Frontiers in Neurosciences, Frontiers in Emotion Science, Frontiers in Psychology, Acta Psychologica, Psychological Research, Cognition, Brain Topography, Rendiconti dei Lincei Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, Giornale Italiano di Psicologia.)
Reviewer of research projects for international research funding agencies
(H2020 European Research Council (ERC);
Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, Wellcome Trust, The Royal Society, UK;
National Competence Center in Biomedical Imaging (NCCBI), ETH, EPSL, SW)