Vedere voci e sentire colori: il cervello umano tra plasticità e stabilità

The human brain has the extraordinary ability to adapt its structure and functions in response to experience and the environment. The idea that deaf and blind individuals develop superior sensory abilities in the remaining senses has long fascinated neuroscientists and often comes up when it comes to deafness or blindness.
Today we know that these superior abilities come with changes in the function of the brain's sensory areas which, when are not specifically stimulated, reorganize and participate in the elaboration of stimuli coming from the other sensory modes. But how do these functions change? What mechanisms drive these brain plasticity phenomena? What is the interaction between genetics and experience?
In this meeting we will examine the neuroscientific discoveries on brain plasticity and sensory deprivation of the last twenty years and delve into the old and controversial Nature versus Nurture debate on the development and functional specialization of the human brain.

Welcome address:

• Paolo Carta, Director of Collegio Clesio

Guest lecturer:

• Stefania Benetti (CIMeC UniTrento)

Stefania Benetti is a junior researcher at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) of the University of Trento. She completed her post-graduate studies with a master's degree at University College London in speech neuroscience in hearing and hearing impaired individuals and a PhD in psychological medicine and neuroimaging from King's College London on the study of neurobiology of psychotic phenomena.
At CIMeC, her research focuses on how early sensory and linguistic experience affects brain organization and what principles drive cross-modal plasticity phenomena in people with deafness and blindness. For this purpose, she adopted a multimodal approach that combines behavioural studies with advanced functional and structural neuroimaging techniques.