Chiara Spironelli Associate Professor at the University of Padua.
She received her first-class degree at the University of Padova in 2003 (Summa cum laude), her qualification as State Registered Psychologist in 2005, and her PhD in 2007. From 2007 to 2011, she achieved three Research Grants, and from May 2012 she is Assistant Professor (M-PSI/02) at the Department of General Psychology of University of Padova. At present, she is Associate Professor at the University of Padua.
In addition to the main techniques for the psychophysiological research, she is skilled in administration and evaluation of a large number of batteries to assess the cognitive functioning, for the neuropsychological assessment and the evaluation of the main psychiatric syndromes. Within the international framework, she collaborates with the Reichenau Psychiatry Center, (Prof. Dr. B. Rockstroh, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz), where she spent a research period on the EEG correlates of language during the PhD courses, and with the SANE POWIC Warneford Hospital (Prof. Dr. T.J. Crow, Department of Psychiatry, Oxford, UK), in a project on electrophysiological correlates of hemispheric specialization for language and the main psychiatric syndromes.
From 2004 she supervises students in the last phase of experimental diploma preparation and writing (both for first degrees and master degrees), postgraduate students and internship postgraduates for their training and research activities in the Psychophysiology group (Chief: Prof. A. Angrilli). From 2015 she holds the “Psychobiology of Psychotic Disorders” class within the Master Degree in Clinical Psychology, and from 2016 she also holds the “Psychophysiology” class within the Bachelor Degree in Psychological Science (University of Padova).
She was ad hoc referee for several neuroscience journals (e.g., Biological Psychology, Cortex, International Journal of Psychophysiology, NeuroImage, Psychological Research, Psychophysiology and Schizophrenia Research). She won the Young Researchers’ Award, year 2006, of the Italian Psychology Association (AIP) – Experimental section – and the AIP Award for the best PhD thesis, year 2007.
Main Research Interests
- Study of the correlation between different levels of auditory hallucinations/delusions and hemispheric dominance for language in paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar and depressive patients using electrophysiological measures (evoked potential and EEG band analyses)
- Study of the (normal and pathological) modulation of attention and spatial awareness by concurrent task demands by means of electrophysiological correlates
- Study of body posture effects on EEG cognitive functioning in healthy participants and neurological patients
- A new approach for contrasting cognitive decline in elderly: measuring cortical reorganization after working memory training with behavioral and electrophysiological (evoked potential and EEG band) indices (Progetto di Ateneo CPDA152872)
- Study of cortical plasticity mechanisms in aphasic patients before and after the functional recovery using electrophysiological measures (evoked potential and EEG band analyses)