Laura Zapparoli

RICERCATORE Unità fMRI – IRCCS Galeazzi (Milano)

Laura Zapparoli is a post-doc researcher at the fMRI Unit of IRCCS Galeazzi, in Milan. She received her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Milano-Bicocca, after spending one year as visiting research fellow at the Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders (Institute of Neurology - University College London).
Her main research interest is motor control, with reference to the study of the different stages of action production: from the more abstract aspects (i.e. the different components of intention to move and the mechanism of action representation), through explicit motor execution and motor awareness. These topics were investigated studying both healthy subjects, with particular attention to the changes associated with the adult life-span and the physiological processes of aging, and neurological populations, in order to have a complementary approach for the better understanding of the neurophysiological underpinnings of motor control.
More recently, she focused her research activity on the study of the different mental processes related to intentional actions.

Modelli neurofunzionali dell’azione intenzionale

Unità fMRI – IRCCS Galeazzi (Milano)

Ogni giorno ci troviamo di fronte alla necessità di prendere decisioni consapevoli, che sono alla base dei nostri comportamenti espliciti.
La mia attività di ricerca attualmente si focalizza proprio sui processi intenzionali che portano alla messa in atto di un’azione volontaria. In particolare, sto testando il modello neurocognitivo definito “What, When and Whether” dell’azione intenzionale, che ipotizza come l’intenzionalità sia un costrutto cognitivo suddivisibile in almeno tre sotto-componenti, che vanno a definire il contenuto e la tempistica di un’azione, così come l’eventualità di metterla in atto.
Nella mia presentazione discuterò dati meta-analitici, comportamentali e neurofunzionali, mostrando come i processi decisionali che portano ad un’azione volontaria siano effettivamente dissociabili in componenti discrete, che si manifestano con il reclutamento di regioni cerebrali distinte a livello della corteccia cerebrale prefrontale.

The what, the when and the whether of intentional action in the brain

Every day we face the need to make conscious decisions on intentional acts; this situation portrays a number of possible phases behind purposeful, goal-directed behaviours. In my research, I’m studying whether their intentional component is under a unitary or a multi-dimensional controller, or indeed multiple controllers. In particular, I challenged the what, when and whether anatomical model of intentional actions, which states that internally driven decisions for the content and timing of our actions, and on whether to act at all, depend on separable neural systems anatomically segregated along the medial wall of the frontal lobe.
I will discuss meta-analytical, behavioural and neurofunctional evidence, supporting the idea of a non-unitary neural foundations for the processes involved in intentional actions, with intentionality manifesting itself in discrete components through the boosting of general purpose action-related regions specialized for different aspects of action selection and inhibition.