The researchers of a laboratory located in Rovereto, two institutions in Japan, a University in Singapore and an US institute: an international alliance to investigate the parent-baby early interactions. The initiative is coordinated by Gianluca Esposito, a researcher of DiPSCo - Department of Psychology and Cognitive science of the University of Trento.
He was born in 1979, completed his PhD at the University of Trento and just inaugurated at DiPSCo a laboratory funded by the European Union and the Japanese Ministry for Scientific Research. The Lab dealsi with the Affiliative Behavior and Physiology of the social interactions and it is called ABP-Lab). Now he is starting up a new laboratory at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.
«The labs in Singapore and in Rovereto – Esposito announces – will cooperate with the RIKEN Brain Science Institute of Tokyo, the Nagasaki University, the NIH National Institutes of Health of Bethesda (Maryland - USA) and at local level the Laboratory of Functional observation and diagnostics, coordinated by Paola Venuti that has been a reference point for autism for over a decade».
Gianluca Esposito was appointed by the NTU to start the new laboratory with the relevant tools (HR, facilities, financial means).
Esposito explains: «I am a researcher at DiPSCo in Rovereto. I have recently started to work at the Psychology Department of the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore as Nanyang Assistant Professor. It is a prestigious job, covered by a start-up grant up to one million dollars. I am organizing a lab where, among the other activities, we will deal with the mum-baby early interactions and the potential implications for the evolutionary diagnosis (in particular regarding autism) using the genetic and neuroimaging techniques. We hope to organize the first exchanges of PhD students and professors between Trento and Singapore within the first six months of next year».
The creation of a network among the different actors researching on autism shall favour the scientific cooperation and the sharing of results, as well as the mobility of researchers among the various involved countries.
The bilateral agreement already gives the opportunity to 6 students enrolled in the Master’s degree course in Psychology of the University of Trento to participate in a research project at the Nagasaki University. Esposito is the coordinator of the agreement. The University of Trento also already cooperates with the RIKEN Brain Science Institute of Tokyo. Esposito worked there between 2010 and 2014 with a team of scholars who identified the physiological mechanisms due to which a baby quiets down when the mother takes it in her arms and takes it around. The study has been published by the journal “Current Biology”.
The mum-baby relationship is studied from an evolutionistic viewpoint and to facilitate the care and management of the baby by the parents and other adults: this is one of the main research topics of the works by Gianluca Esposito. The research aims at analysing the neural bases of the first social interactions. Esposito also deals with the analysis of the impact of culture on the parents’ behaviors. Finally he also deals with the detection of early sign of autism to improve the diagnosis already during the first months of the baby’s life.