In the Neuroscience and Society LAB, we studied emotions and personality traits, gender differences, anxiety, and cognitive reserve in healthy human participants and patients with neurological, neurosurgical, neuropsychological, and developmental disorders.
In particular, we are studying:
- spatial cognition, and how it is impacted by a variety of different factors such as gender, top-down strategies, sex hormones, bottom-up influences and cognitive traits (Nadia Marie Bersier);
- neural correlates of various aspects of emotions, including emotion regulation, emotional intelligence, the interaction with cognitive processes, as well as their expression in complex social contexts and in psychopathological patients (Bianca Monachesi);
- the influence of personality on socio-cognitive skills, spanning both behavioral and neural domains, across diverse populations including the general population and patients (Elisabetta Pisanu);
- the impact of sports activity and the type of sport practiced on cognitive reserve and related neural correlates in young adults and the elderly (Stefania Lucia);
- environmental and cognitive factors contributing to establish a pool of cognitive resources (i.e., cognitive reserve) possibly protecting from cognitive decline, both in young and older adults (Silvia Fornaro);
- how factors such as emotions and personality traits influence performance in numeracy tests. I investigate these relationships using both self-reports and physiological measures, including skin conductance, heart rate variability, and cortisol levels (Maristella Lunardon);
- gender differences, attention, anxiety, cognitive reserve and the application of techniques such as EEG, tDCS, and TMS (Maryam Hadi Sichani).
