Research

Normal reading and developmental dyslexia (DD) depend on both linguistic-phonological and visuo-spatial aspects. The latter have been linked to the functionality of the magnocellular-dorsal (M-D) visual pathway, which would guide the extraction and correct segmentation of letters/words during reading. One of our main research line is focused on the oscillatory brain activity supporting the M-D stream role during reading, and the dysfunction of such processes in individuals with DD.

The flow of sensory information needs to be coherently integrated when multiple information come from the same source, but also appropriately segregated when information come from different sources. This seemingly easy problem is actually one of the aspects of human perception that remains minimally understood. A main research line in the lab is focused on the human cognitive and neural mechanisms, and related individual differences, underlying temporal integration and segregation of information within and across sensory modalities (vision and audition).

Core social-communicative deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may be better understood starting from the comprehension of anomalies in basic functions such as visual/auditory perception, multisensory integration and attention. This because the developmental trajectories of these basic functions are supposed to constitute the “building blocks” of cognitive and social skills development. A main research line in the lab follows this principle to shed lights into basic cognitive and psychophysiological anomalies in ASD, and how they impact on more complex behavioral domains.