Brain Development (9)

Gabriele Deidda

Gabriele Deidda is currently Researcher of Physiology at the Department of Biomedical Science, University of Padua.

Dr Deidda obtained his Bachelor degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Palermo (Italy) in 2007, and his Master degree in Neurobiology at the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2009 with a thesis on the role of insuline-like growth factor (IGF-1) in the development of the visual system, under the supervision of Prof. Nicoletta Berardi. He obtained his PhD in Neuroscience at the Italian Institute of Technology in 2014 (Genoa, Italy) working in Dr Laura Cancedda’s Lab. During his PhD studies, Dr Deidda studied the role of GABAergic transmission during neurodevelopment, maldevelopment and plasticity using in vitro electrophysiological techniques and anatomical techniques including in utero electroporation and immunohistochemistry.

Giorgia Cona

Giorgia Cona, PhD, is an assistant professor (Ricercatore di Tipo B) at the University of Padova, Department of General Psychology.

She received a Master’s degree in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Behavioural Neuroscience (110/110 cum laude) in 2008 at the University of Padova. She earned a PhD. in Psychobiology in 2012. She spent a period abroad in 2011 working at the University of Toronto, in the Morris Moscovitch’s Lab.

From 2012 to 2016, she had post-doc positions at the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of General Psychology (University of Padova). In 2017, she become lecturer (RTDa) at the Department of General Psychology.

Giovanni Mento

Giovanni Mento is Research Assistant Professor (RTD-B) in Developmental Neuropsychology and  EEG recording and Analysis at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padua. He received his master degree in Psychology (2005) and his PhD in Psychobiology (2009) at the University of Padua.  During his PhD, He visited the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the INSERM-CEA ‘Cognitive Neuroimaging unit’ CEA/SAC/DSV/DRM/NeuroSpin, Saclay (Paris). He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padua (2009-2016).

His research interests are in the field of Cognitive Neurosciences, Developmental Cognitive Neurosciences and Developmental Neuropsychology. His main research topic is the investigation of the brain predictive and anticipatory activity in a developmental neuroconstructivist perspective, with a special interest about how top-down and bottom-up temporal expectancy interplay to shape multiple cognitive domains, including attention, motor preparation, working memory and inhibitory control.

Judit Gervain

Judit Gervain is a Full Professor at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology. She is trained as a theoretical linguistic, obtained a PhD in 2002 in Cognitive Neuroscience under the mentorship of Jacques Mehler from SISSA, Trieste, Italy. She then worked as a post doctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. In 2009, she took up a researcher position at the CNRS, in Paris, France, from which she moved to the University of Padua in 2020.

Her research focuses early speech perception and language acquisition in typically developing monolingual, bilingual infants as well as in infants with hearing difficulties.

Paola Rigo

Paola Rigo is an Assistant Professor (RTD-B) at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation of the University of Padua (2018 – at present). She received her master’s degree in Psychology path Neuroscience (2009) and her Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences and Education (2013) at the University of Trento. As a Ph.D. student, she visited the Family and Child Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Denver (CO, US). She was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of Health (NICHD -NIH, Bethesda, MD, US; 2014-2015) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore, SG; 2016-2017).

Scientific Production
She is an author of 22 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals (most of them in high-quality journals including Scientific Report Nature, Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, Developmental Review, NeuroImage and Social neuroscience), 1 book and 4 book chapters.

Paolo Meneguzzo

Paolo Meneguzzo is a researcher (RTD-A) at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova.

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2012 and completed his residency in Psychiatry in 2018 at the University of Padova. He was selected in 2011 for an Erasmus internship at the Department of Neuroscience and Functional Pharmacology of the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He wrote his dissertation about functional neuroimaging data of the perception of subliminal and supraliminal food pictures in patients with anorexia nervosa. After that, during his residency, he spent three months at the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy of the University of Tübingen (Germany), where he studied neuromodulation and evaluation of treatment outcomes in eating disorder patients.

Patrizia Bisiacchi

Present position

Full Professor M PSI02 (Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology) School of Psychology, University  of Padova.

Member of the National Committee for Research (CNGR) -MIUR.

Head of the Master degree (second cycle) in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology (CN2), Department of General Psychology, University of Padova.

Director of the Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (LCNL) Department of General Psychology, University of Padova.

Major Research interests

  • Use of brain imaging techniques in the life-span to understand the neural systems involved in cognitive functions
  • Develop novel interventions aimed at modulating psychological processes and improving the health and quality of life of patients with neurological disorders
  • Estimation of cortical connectivity in the life-span from high resolution EEG
  • Co-registration of EEG, fNIRS, TMS and tDCS data in the study of executive functions, time perception, and prospective memory in healthy persons and patients.

Silvia Benavides Varela

Silvia Benavides Varela is an Associate Professor affiliated to the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology and Department of Neuroscience at Padua University. She is trained as a biotechnology engineer, obtained a PhD in Neuroscience under the mentorship of Jacques Mehler from SISSA, Trieste, Italy. She then worked as a post doctoral researcher at the IRCSS San Camillo Hospital in Venice, and the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (CNRS & Université Paris Descartes), in Paris, France.

The most important part of her research focused on developing new methods for unveiling the initial state of memory capacities in humans, the environmental factors that modulate learning, and the properties of the brain systems that support language and mathematic achievements across the life-span.

Teresa Farroni

Present position

Teresa Farroni is Full Professor in Developmental Psychology at University of Padua (Italy) with over twenty years of research experience. She is teaching Developmental Psychology (undergraduate courses) and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (master course) both in Italian and in English.

Scientific production

More than 50 peer-reviewed papers (all in ISI journals); ore than 100 reviews for more than 20 different ISI journals (including Nature, Neuron, PNAS etc.), project proposals (ERC, Cost Actions, etc.), and official reviewer for ANVUR – National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems; reviewer for the following international journals: Nature Neuroscience, Scientific Report (Nature), Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, Cognition, Developmental Science, Neuropsychologia, Neuron, Brain Research, Psychological Bulletin, Child Development, Cortex, European Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, PlosOne, European Journal of Developmental Psychology, Visual Cognition, Emotion Review, Biological Psychology, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Psychological Science.