Marilena obtained her Bachelor's degree in 2004 and Master's degree in 2007 in Cognitive Psychology at “La Sapienza” University in Rome. During her PhD she joined the laboratory directed by prof. Doricchi at I.R.C.C.S Santa Lucia, where she studied the interactions between attention and numerical cognition and the neural underpinnings of number processing, mainly in brain-damaged patients. She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2011 and then she moved to Trieste where, as a postdoctoral researcher, joined the iNSuLa Lab. At SISSA she carried out studies on clinical populations such as Parkinson’s disease and Multiple sclerosis. Since December 2015, she is Researcher A-Type. Her research interests are food perception and eating, emotional processing, spatial attention and numerical cognition.
Publications:
Aiello, M., Ambron, E., Situlin, R., Foroni, F., Biolo, G., & Rumiati, R.I. (2018). Body weight and its association with impulsivity in middle and old age individuals. Brain and Cognition, 123, 103-109.
Terenzi, D,, Rumiati, R.I., Catalan, M,, Antonutti, L., Furlanis, G., Garlasco, P., ... & Aiello, M. (2018). Reward sensitivity in Parkinson's patients with binge eating. Parkinsonism & Related Disorders.
Mengotti, P., Aiello, M., Terenzi, D., Miniussi, C., & Rumiati, R. I. (2018). How brain response and eating habits modulate food energy estimation. Physiology & behavior, 188, 18-24.
Aiello, M., Merola, S., Lasaponara, S., Pinto, M., Tomaiuolo, F., Doricchi, F. (2018) The influence of visual and phonological features on the hemispheric processing of hierarchical Navon letters. Neuropsychologia, 109, 75-85.
Cecchetto, C., Rumiati, R.I., & Aiello, M. (2017). Alexithymia and emotional reactions to odors. Scientific Reports, 7, 14097.
Aiello, M., Eleopra, R., Foroni, F., Rinaldo, S., & Rumiati, R. I. (2017). Weight gain after STN-DBS: The role of reward sensitivity and impulsivity. Cortex.
Cecchetto, C., Korb, S., Rumiati, R. I., & Aiello, M. (2017). Emotional reactions in moral decision-making are influenced by empathy and alexithymia. Social Neuroscience, 1-15.
Aiello, M., Silani, V., & Rumiati, R. I. (2016). You stole my food! Eating alterations in frontotemporal dementia. Neurocase, 22(4), 400-409.
Foroni, F., Vignando, M., Aiello, M., Parma, V., Paoletti, M. G., Squartini, A., & Rumiati, R. I. (2016). The Smell of Terroir! Olfactory Discrimination between Wines of different Grape Variety and different Terroir. Food Quality and Preference.
Rotondaro, F., Merola, S., Aiello, M., Pinto, M., & Doricchi, F. (2015). Dissociation between line bisection and mental-number-line bisection in healthy adults. Neuropsychologia, 75, 565-576.
Aiello, M., Eleopra, R., & Rumiati, R. I. (2015). Body weight and food intake in Parkinson's disease. A review of the association to non-motor symptoms. Appetite, 84, 204-211.
Cecchetto, C., Aiello, M., D’Amico, D., Cutuli, D., Cargnelutti, D., Eleopra, R., & Rumiati, R. I. (2014). Facial and bodily emotion recognition in multiple sclerosis: The role of alexithymia and other characteristics of the disease. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 20(10), 1004-1014.
Aiello, M., Eleopra, R., Lettieri, C., Mondani, M., D'Auria, S., Belgrado, E., ... & Rumiati, R. I. (2014). Emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease after subthalamic deep brain stimulation: Differential effects of microlesion and STN stimulation. Cortex, 51, 35-45.
De Schotten, M. T., Tomaiuolo, F., Aiello, M., Merola, S., Silvetti, M., Lecce, F., ... & Doricchi, F. (2012). Damage to white matter pathways in subacute and chronic spatial neglect: a group study and 2 single-case studies with complete virtual “in vivo” tractography dissection. Cerebral Cortex, bhs351.
Aiello, M., Merola, S., & Doricchi, F. (2013). Small numbers in the right brain: evidence from patients without and with spatial neglect. Cortex, 49(1), 348-351.
Aiello, M., Jacquin-Courtois, S., Merola, S., Ottaviani, T., Tomaiuolo, F., Bueti, D., ... & Doricchi, F. (2012). No inherent left and right side in human ‘mental number line’: evidence from right brain damage. Brain, 135(8), 2492-2505.
Rossetti, Y., Jacquin-Courtois, S., Aiello, M., Ishihara, M., Brozzoli, C., & Doricchi, F. (2011). Neglect ‘around the clock’: dissociating number and spatial neglect in right brain damage. Space, time and number in the brain: Searching for the foundations of mathematical thought, 149-173.
Binetti, N., Aiello, M., Merola, S., Bruschini, M., Lecce, F., Macci, E., & Doricchi, F. (2011). Positive correlation in the bisection of long and short horizontal Oppel–Kundt illusory gradients: Implications for the interpretation of the “cross-over” effect in spatial neglect. Cortex, 47(5), 608-616.
Doricchi, F., Merola, S., Aiello, M., Guariglia, P., Bruschini, M., Gevers, W., ... & Tomaiuolo, F. (2009). Spatial orienting biases in the decimal numeral system. Current Biology, 19(8), 682-687.