Emiliano Ricciardi

• Over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, and >200 abstracts at scientific meetings - Google Scholar webpage

• Specializes in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology, with a particular focus on the sensory processes and brain function related to blindness and sensory deprivation. His research also explores the neural basis of cognitive and perceptual processes, employing neuroimaging techniques and advanced anyltic tools to study brain activity

• Director of the PhD Program in ‘Cognitive, Computational and Social Neurosciences’, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca

• Vice-Rector for Didactics, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca

• The youngest Chair of an Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (Barcelona2010 and Rome2019)

• Received several fellow travel and young investigator awards. Several invited lectures and oral presentations at international meetings and research/academic Institutions

• He has been involved in significant interdisciplinary projects that bridge neuroscience with technology and cognitive science

• Editorial Responsibilities for Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Neurology, Neural Plasticity, Archives Italiennes de Biologie, Experimental Results and Frontiers in Cognitive Science

• He is also a committed educator, involved in designing and delivering courses related to brain science and neuropsychology for various academic programs. His work emphasizes the practical applications of neuroscience research in understanding and improving human cognitive and sensory capabilities.
   

For many years, research protocols have been conducted in the fields of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, and, particularly, in the assessment of in vivo behavioral, structural and functional correlates of physiological and pathological brain function.
His research group MoMiLab integrates basic neuroscience methods with experimental psychophysiology, cognitive neuroscience and structural/functional brain imaging, and develops its own lines of research on the topics of perception and representation of the external world, and on the interaction with it. In the thematic context of the ERC SH4 'The Human Mind and Its Complexity', the research areas of the MoMiLab include integrated and multidisciplinary aspects that focus on the study of mental activities and cognitive functions.
Main topics of research:

• Cognitive and social neuroscience, psychophysiology, neuroimaging, cerebral biochemistry and metabolism;
• Neural correlates of multimodal perception and recognition in sighted and sensory-deprived individuals (such as blind and deaf individuals). Supramodal brain functional organization: sensory-independent object form perception, motion discrimination, spatial localization, event representation and semantic knowledge. Cross-modal plastic reorganization following sensory-deprivation;
• Action recognition and representation, behavioral and functional correlates of motor control, representation of the space for action;
• Influencing elements of brain plasticity: behavioral and functional correlates of experience/learning-induced neural plasticity and functional recovery; pharmacological modulation on memory and attention;
• Use and development of brain functional exploration methodologies, such as positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and high-resolution electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography (M/EEG);
• Application of advanced approaches to brain functional data analysis (including multivariate and machine learning-derived tools such as multivoxel pattern analyses, representational similarities analyses, etc.) and functional/effective connectivity approaches to link neuronal activity to representational content and cognitive theories;