The Developmental Neuro-Imaging Laboratory is a research laboratory of the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences of the University of Trento. The Lab is located in the Paediatrics Department of the S. Maria del Carmine Hospital, in Rovereto (Trento, Italy) and its research focuses on the new-borns’ brain activity.
Among the ongoing projects one regards the understanding of how the social brain develops during the very first hours of life and, in particular, the detection of the brain areas involved in the recognition of animated organisms.
The research team includes a group of young, internationally renowned female researchers, Elisa Frasnelli, Orsola Rosa Salva, Sang Ah Lee e Elisa Di Giorgio, and some students.
The research project regards the detection of the mechanisms which prepare the recognition of animated objects in new-borns and their neural bases through the Functional Optical Tomography (fNIRS), within the framework of a wider project, financed by the European Union with 2.3 million EUR: the ERC Advanced Grant, awarded in 2012 to the Director of CIMEC, Giorgio Vallortigara. The project aims at researching the neural bases of the biological predispositions in the recognition of animacy, using animal models and studies on human babies.
The study carried on in the Developmental Neuro-Imaging Laboratory will evaluate the changes in the brain activity connected with the presentation of various visual stimuli, supposed recognition signals of living organisms (stimuli similar to faces and dynamic stimuli mimicking the biological movement and self-motion), to detect for the first time the brain areas activated in the babies as a consequence of such stimuli.
150 babies a year will be studied during their very first hours of life, while they stay in hospital after their birth.