Responsible: Claudia Gandini, Fulvia Palesi, Egidio D’Angelo
Research group: Anita Monteverdi, Doris Pischedda, Roberta Lorenzi, Marta Gaviraghi, Eleonora Lupi, Gökçe Korkmaz, Elena Grosso

The research strategy of this group aims to investigate the neural bases of brain activity at the macroscale level combining recording techniques in vivo, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), with computational models and artificial intelligence.
MRI data will be analyzed to obtain metrics representing microstructural physiological proprieties of the brain, such as the density and orientation of neurites but also the content of myelin, iron, and the main brain metabolites. Further, brain connectivity will be reconstructed using diffusion tractography and functional MRI to create a personalized avatar of the human brain, which will be combined with computational models to generate synthetic meaningful signals of brain activity.
Personalized digital brain twins (DBT) will be created to profile patients at different pathological stages and to help therapeutic intervention. DBT will exploit some of the front-edge technologies of computational neuroscience: mean field models will embed mesoscale structural and functional features to be adapted to reproduce the pathological activity of several neurological pathologies.
Further, modelling techniques will be applied to specific brain networks in order to investigate the physiological and pathological mechanisms underlying human behavior and emergent functions.
We have a long track record in MRI and modelling investigation and its application to the neurological field. See our web site for further details https://dangelo.unipv.it/ .
A PhD student will have the possibility to choose amongst different specific projects by covering various aspects of the investigation of brain functioning. The study may also be applied to brain diseases, with the aim of identifying strategies for diagnosis and personalized therapy. The main current projects are:
• Neuroimaging analysis and virtual brain modelling of the human brain;
• Neuroimaging analysis and virtual brain modelling of the rodent brain;
• Neuroimaging and electrophysiological recording for multimodal virtual brain models;
• Digital Brain Twins of patients to predict the evolution of pathology (dementia, ataxia, schizophrenia, Parkinson);
• Mean field models of the cerebellar network for specific pathological states (ataxia, dystonia, paroxysmal dyskinesia, autism, schizophrenia);
• Analysis of motor and cognitive tasks using dynamic causal modelling.

Students have the possibility to spend part of their research activity in collaboration with research groups in the UK, France and Germany. The projects are developed within a collaborative national and international network, which comprises MNESYS, CN1, EBRAINS 2.0, and Virtual Brain Twin (VBT) projects.