About me

I am a PhD student in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, supervised by Professor Hugh Markus.

After graduating with honors from a Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience I spent one year working for a Memory Clinic with dementia patients. Building on my previous research experience with stroke patients in The Netherlands, I then decided to pursue a research degree while continuing to work with and for patients. My main area of interest is how stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases can affect cognition and emotion, from a behavioural and biological point of view.

In particular, my PhD project will revolve around the ‘Apathy after Stroke Study’, a study funded by the Stroke Association whose aim is to follow-up patients one year after stroke to try and understand the complex mechanisms of apathy and its consequences on quality of life.

Thanks to a longitudinal evaluation my work will focus on increasing our knowledge on how common apathy is, how it changes across time and what are the best tools to assess it.

Moreover, I’ll be looking into neuroimaging correlates of apathy by analysing MRI brain scans and specific Diffusion Tensor Imaging markers.

By studying the characteristics and evolution of apathy after stroke we ultimately hope to bring patients better targeted treatments.

Education

2016 – Bachelor’s Degree in Personality Psychology, University of Padova (Italy)

2018 – Master’s Degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Padova (Italy)