Sabrina Brigadoi

Sabrina Brigadoi is Associate Professor at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization at the University of Padova. She studied Bioengineering before receiving her PhD in Psychological Sciences from the University of Padova, under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Dell’Acqua. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow first at UCL in London in the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory and then back in Padova.

 

Her research interests are focused on both advancing the applicability of diffuse optical techniques in both infant and adult populations and applying these techniques to study both pathological and healthy brain processes. She is interested in easing the use of fNIRS for all users, providing guidelines and tools, such as Array Designer, which could help users to objectively design their probe layout. She is also interested in applying fNIRS/DOT techniques to study cognitive processes in the healthy population, aiming to study cognitive functions in ecological settings. Her current research interests aim at evaluating the impact of glycemic variability and tight glycemic control on brain hemodynamics in the very preterm population and their impact on neurodevelopmental outcome, combining optical techniques, EEG and clinical and behavioral measures.

Roberta Sellaro

Roberta Sellaro is an Associate Professor at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization of the University of Padova.

 

She graduated in Psychology in 2007 at the University of Padova, before moving to the Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC) of the University of Trento where, in April 2013, she obtained a PhD in Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Cognitive Neuroscience Programme). During her graduate studies, she investigated whether and to what extent cognitive control efficiency can be affected by the social context surrounding us. Immediately after obtaining her PhD, she joined the Cognitive Psychology Unit of the Leiden University (the Netherlands) and the Leiden Institute for Brain & Cognition (LIBC), where she worked as a postdoctoral fellow, from April 2013 until July 2016, and as an Assistant Professor, from February 2017 until September 2020. During her post-doc, she used food supplementation (tyrosine, tryptophan, probiotics) and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (tDCS, tVNS) to investigate the role of specific neurotransmitters (such as dopamine, GABA, noradrenaline and serotonin) and brain areas (such as prefrontal cortex areas and temporoparietal junction) in modulating cognitive and social functioning. She later carried out research to identify people’s metacontrol policies (biases towards stability or flexibility) and the factors and the conditions that promote the adoption of either policy. In October 2020, she moved to the University of Padova.

 

Her research interests are very broad. In very general terms, her research is aimed at uncovering reciprocal interactions between bottom-up (and/or self-related) and top-down cognitive control processes. She investigates the role of several factors (e.g., environmental/contextual factors, task-specific features, reward, individual differences, and affect) in modulating cognitive and social functioning and decision-making processes.

 

Her current research aims at integrating behavioral, psychophysiological (e.g., heart rate variability, pupil dilation, eye blink rate), computational and virtual reality methods to modulate cognitive control efficiency and emotional processing both in healthy subjects and in individuals with psychiatric disorders.

 

She has several national and international scientific collaborations, has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals (Scopus h-index 19), 4 book chapters, organized various symposia, workshops and an international conference, and has been invited as a speaker at several symposia, research institutes and public events. She regularly serves as ad-hoc reviewer for several important international journals within the domains of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience and has served as an associate editor for two peer-reviewed international journals.

 

For a list of peer-reviewed international publications, see:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T8fO5F4AAAAJ&hl=en

Roberto Dell’Acqua

Roberto Dell’Acqua is Full professor of Cognitive Science at the School of Psychology of the University of Padova.

 

Current position

Former Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology (DPSS). Founder of the Neuroimaging Labs sector in his Department. Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Attention & Performance Society, and Editor of major scientific Journals in the field of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. Principal investigator of the EEG and NIRS Units at the DPSS.

 

Research areas

  • Behavioral investigations of attention limitations in the temporal domain. As a pioneer in the discovery of the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon, several research lines in his labs are still underway to unveil the AB’s EEG and neural correlates.
  • Neuropsychological assessment of attention functions following brain damage. Using the psychological refractory period paradigm, a team of past and present collaborators are seeking to understand the causes of the so-called “mental slowness” affecting patients who suffered traumatic close-head injuries.
  • Cognitive electrophysiology of attention functions in human adults. The EEG/ERP approach is particularly well-suited to capture at the msec level the dynamics underlying an attention shift along the horizontal meridian. This approach, and state-of-the-art analytical approaches, is currently employed in his lab for in-depth explorations of the activity of the fronto-parietal circuit in human adults.
  • Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) of attention functions in human adults. He and his collaborators are presently endeavoring to analyze variations in the concentration of oxy- and de-oxy hemoglobin in the cortical micro-flow so as to map out the regions of the cortical tissue responsible of the striking limitation in the memory maintenance of visually displayed objects.

 

Mendeley: https://www.mendeley.com/profiles/roberto-dellacqua/

Silvia Benavides Varela

Silvia Benavides Varela is Associate Professor at 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. She uses a range of neuroimaging techniques including electroencephalography, and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in combination with behavioral metrics and analyses, both in healthy and in clinical populations.

Simone Cutini

Simone Cutini is Associate Professor, University of Padova, Department of Developmental Psychology.

 

Current Position

Head of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Laboratory, Department of Developmental Psychology.

 

Major research interests

Use of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Behavioral and neuroimaging investigation of:

  • cognitive control
  • visual short-term memory
  • numerical cognition

Teresa Farroni

Teresa Farroni is Full Professor in Developmental Psychology at University of Padua.

 

She has more than 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. Involvement in research projects dedicated to typical and atypical development (COST Action BM1004: Enhancing the Scientific Study of Early Autism (ESSEA); EC Marie Curie Initial Training Networks: Tracking Early Human Development: From Basic Science to Applications; Excellence Project funded by CARIPARO Foundation (Padua).

 

Awards

Received the 2002 Outstanding Young Scientist Award of the University of Padua (€ 15,000).

In the 2004 awarded prestigious Welcome Trust Career Development Research Fellowship (£ 297,505 GBP), Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, UK; 2010-2013 COST Action BM1004: Enhancing the Scientific Study of Early Autism (ESSEA) (509,800 euros).

In the 2010, PI for the Italianpartner for the Marie Curie PhD Studentships in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: Tracking EarlyHuman Development: From Basic Science to Applications Funded by the EC Marie Curie Initial Training

Networks: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN PART B Grant Number: 264301

 

Supervision of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows

She is currently supervising 1 PhD student at the University of Padua. I have already successfully supervised 5 PhD students and 4 post doctoral researchers at the same University. Since 2002 she has successfully supervised 35 undergraduate and 25 masters theses at the University of Padua. She has co-supervised 1 international PhD student, with the Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, UK within an EC Marie Curie Training Network, and she has co-supervised a further 2 international PhD students within the EC Marie Curie Initial Training Networks: Tracking Early Human Development: From Basic Science to Applications.

 

Major Research interests

Her research is interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of typical and atypical development and of behavioural and neuroimaging studies, from birth (time 0) to adulthood. She has focused on the study of the Social Brain by conducting: (1) field studies of the early development of cognitive processes (memory, attention, etc.), (2) investigations of the origins of the social brain, (3) experiments that formulate research questions both on cognitive and neural levels of analysis

Paola Rigo

Paola Rigo is an Assistant Professor (RTD-B) at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation of the University of Padua.

 

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. She served as an ad-hoc reviewer for Behavioural Brain Research, Brain Imaging and Behavior, Brain Research, Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, Developmental Psychobiology, Parenting: Science and Practice, Perceptual & Motor Skills Journal, PLOS ONE, Psychological Reports, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and Social Neuroscience. She was a Guest Editor for Infant Behavior and Development Journal (Edited by Esposito, Bornstein & Rigo, 2020).

Grant and Award
She is a PI of a Research Project funded by BIRD182991-2019 (15K EUR), and a Co-PI of several Research Projects funded by PRIN 2017 (around 119K EUR), Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 Grant 2016 (circa 67K EUR), BIRD195080-2020; (28K EUR), Padova Neuroscience Center, PCN (5K EUR). She received the Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) as Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow (NIH, 2014).

Research Interest and Collaborations
Her research interest focuses on the psychobiological basis of parenting and intersubjectivity. Through an ecological and interdisciplinary perspective, she investigates how caregivers’ response is modulated by the interplay between individual and clinical factors of parents (e.g., temperament, mood) and biological changes occurring during the early post-partum period. In connection with these studies; her research also investigates the effect of situational context in which parents respond to infant needs. She uses an integrated approach that spans from psychological measures to observational, behavioral, and neuroimaging studies (fMRI). National and international research collaborations: Alessandra Simonelli (University of Padova), Pilyoung Kim (University of Denver), Xiaoxia Du (East China Normal University), Marc H. Bornstein, (NIH), Gianluca Esposito (Nanyang Technological University, University of Trento), Paola Venuti (University of Trento). Since 2012, she is a member of the Special Community Membership of the University of Denver (Dr. Kim).

Paola Sessa

Paola Sessa is Full Professor at the Dept. of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation (DPSS) in Padova.

 

She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Sciences in 2005 at the University of Padova. Much of her initial research was on basic attentional and visual working memory processes. She directs the Electroencephalography Laboratory at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology and she is a member of the Cognition and Language Laboratory (CoLab) and of the Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC) of the same University.

 

She is author of about 35 publications (of which 12 as first/corresponding author) and most of them have been published in leading international journals like Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Scientific Reports, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuropsychologia and Psychophysiology. She is Associate Editor of Scientific Reports and ad hoc reviewer for 18 International journals, including: Advances in Cognitive Psychology, Biological Psychology, Brain Research, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition and Emotion, Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cortex, European Journal of Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Neuroimage, Neuropsychologia, PlosOne, Psychological Research, Psychophysiology, Scientific Reports, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience.

 

Her research mostly focuses on empathy and simulative processes and on their neural underpinnings by using techniques with high temporal resolution, such as the EEG and ERP. She is also planning to use hyperscanning (co-registration of brain activity from two or more interacting individuals) to study these same processes in a more ecological and potentially informative setting. So far, she has been collaborating on these projects with Shihui Han (Peking University, China) and Jeroen Vaes (Università di Trento). At the present, she is also planning new collaborations with colleagues expert on theory and methodology relative to hyperscanning, such as Lauri Parkkonen (Aalto University, Finland) and Ivana Konvalinka (University of Denmark, Denmark).

 

A different line of research mostly focuses on using EEG/ERP to study how social cues conveyed by human faces, such as emotional expressions, group membership, gaze direction and perceived trustworthiness may shape low-level processes, in particular resolution of faces’ representations in visual working memory. So far, she has been collaborating on these projects with Pierre Jolicoeur (University of Montreal, Canada) and Roy Luria (Tel-Aviv University, Israel), who are both experts of visual working memory processes and their neural correlates.

Jeff Kiesner

Jeff Kiesner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Padova.

 

He has a broad background in both research and teaching, including courses taught in statistics, developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience; and research publications across areas of developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology and psychoneuroendocrinology.

 

He has conducted pioneering research on individual differences in symptom experience associated with the menstrual cycle, with the goal of better understanding what characterizes Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). This work has focused on demonstrating the importance of studying each woman’s individual profile and trajectory of physical and psychological changes across the menstrual cycle. Related to this research, he has published a cross-disciplinary theoretical paper connecting the development of affective disorders with the neuroendocrine, behavioral and social changes associated with pubertal development and the onset of the menstrual cycle among adolescent girls. Whereas Kiesner’s past research in this area has focused on high-frequency longitudinal assessment of symptoms, future research will include neuroimaging studies and neuroendocrine studies to understand the neurological links between the multitude of physical and psychological symptoms associated with PMDD.

 

 

A recent extension of this research includes a focus on sexual function and dysfunction among women, including problems associated with sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm. This research focusses on affective and cognitive mechanisms associated with inhibition of sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm, and will include studies aimed at understanding brain activations and effective connectivity. In addition to these well recognized (though poorly understood) issues concerning female sexual functioning, a new focus of Kiesner’s research will be on Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder/Genito-Pelvic Dysesthesia (PGAD/GPD). These less recognized and less studied disorders have important psychological implications and neuropathophysiological origins that will likely offer insights to prevention and treatment and will be an important part of Kiesner’s future work.

Eloisa Valenza

Eloisa Valenza is currently Full professor in Developmental Cognitive Psychology (M-PSI/04), Padova University School of Psychology.

 

She is author of 67 scientific contributions among articles published on peer-reviewed international (30) and national (21), academic book chapters (14) and monographs (2). Scopus citation: 996, Scopus h-index: 14.

 

Major research interest

Her research interests focus on cognitive development in infancy, with specific reference to the early effect of attentional, perceptual and postural abilities on high level cognition (e.g., language acquisition). A clear understanding of early cognitive abilities and motor functioning is critical for identifying precocious predictors of atypical development that originate in infancy but continue throughout childhood. Her studies involve typical and at-risk populations and mainly utilize behavioural methodologies, such as eye-tracker system for recording eye movements.

 

Infant Cognitive Lab:  http://www.dpss.unipd.it/babylab/home

Antonio Maffei

Antonio Maffei is an Assistant Professor (RTD-a) at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization (DPSS) of the University of Padova.

 

He obtained his Master’s Degree in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in 2014, and his PhD in Psychological Sciences in 2019 from the University of Padova (Supervisor: Prof. Alessandro Angrilli).

 

He held positions as a junior and senior postdoctoral fellow at the Department of General Psychology (Supervisor: Prof. Alessandro Angrilli), Padova Neuroscience Center, and Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization (Supervisor: Prof. Paola Sessa) of the University of Padova. Furthermore, he has been a visiting researcher at the University of Würzburg (Germany) and the Babes-Bolyai University (Romania).

 

His research interests are focused on understanding the psychobiological correlates of emotional behavior in healthy and subclinical populations, taking advantage of a wide range of electrophysiological techniques for measuring activity in the central (EEG/MEG) and peripheral nervous system (ECG, EMG, GSR). Furthermore, he is interested in devising ecological experimental approaches for experimental emotional induction.

 

Active research lines cover the following topics:

  • Characterizing how social support, social relationships, and social isolation shape stress reactivity, with a focus on the cardiovascular component of the stress response
  • Characterizing the psychophysiological implications of emotional contagion of stress
  • Developing new statistical tools for assessing interindividual synchronization in brain and peripheral nervous system activity during ecological emotional induction

 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57103014500

Scholar: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=9Tr6JR4AAAAJ&hl=it