Valentina Pacella, 2ndyear PhD student Progress Report · Throughout the year, I have supervised the thesis project of a BD student, and I have started to supervise the thesis project

Valentina Pacella, 2ndyear PhD student

Progress Report

PhD programme in "Psychology and Social Neuroscience"

Curriculum in "Cognitive Social and Affective Neuroscience - CoSAN”

Supervisor: Valentina Moro

2nd year

1.

DATE October 2017-November 2017

ACTIVITY Student supervising

SUMMARY

During this period, I have remotely supervised the accomplishment of the thesis project of a

Bachelor Degree (BD) student. He have concluded the collection of behavioural data as part of my

research study on action timing estimation in anosognosic and hemiplegic patients. I have

supervised the writing of his thesis manuscript and aided him in the data analysis and the results

discussion. He successfully graduated cum laude in November.

IMPROVING COMPETENCES

• Supervising skills.

• Data analysis on R.

2.

DATE September 2017-December 2017

ACTIVITY Research activity

SUMMARY

During these months, I have concluded my period as visiting PhD student at the BCB-Lab, in Paris. I

have accomplished the research activity project in collaboration with Michel Thiebaut de Schotten

on the investigation of white matter disconnections in Anosognosia for Hemiplegia. In this period,

have also written the first draft of the study.


• Collaboration with international experts.

• Statistical analysis of neuroimaging data.

• Interpretation and discussion of results.

• Writing of a scientific paper.

3.

DATE January 2018


SUMMARY

In this month, I have thought about another experiment for the investigation of deficit in time

discrimination after left brain damage. In fact, following the preliminary analysis on action timing

estimation in hemiplegic patients, I have decided to explore in depth the time perception abilities

following left brain damage. The paradigm consist of a temporal discrimination task, where

participants are required to distinguish the duration of two stimuli as being equal or different. This

will provide an index of discrimination ability, which takes in account the interindividual variability.

Even though previous literature failed to disentangle the role of the right and left hemisphere in

time perception, we predict that left brain damage patients will show an impaired time

discrimination with respect to right brain damaged patients.


• Research and study of scientific papers.

• Formulating experimental hypothesis, planning an experiment.

4.

DATE February 2018-August 2018

ACTIVITY Student supervision

SUMMARY

During these six months I co-supervised the research activity of an international visiting student

from the University of Goldsmiths (London). I have coordinated with her the writing of a review on

the rehabilitation techniques for Anosognosia for Hemiplegia.


• Supervising skills

• Analytical study of scientific papers.

• Implementation of a review study.

5.

DATE February 2018-March 2018

ACTIVITY Research Activity

SUMMARY

During this period, I implemented the behavioural task for the experimental study on Time

Discrimination in brain damaged patients on E-Prime. I piloted the study both on patients and

control subjects, in order to preliminary observe their performance and to verify the functioning of

the methodological assessment.


• Programming of experimental paradigm.

• Pilot data collection and critical reasoning of preliminary results.

6.

DATE February 2018-May 2018

ACTIVITY Teaching Activity

SUMMARY

In these months I gave a “Neuroanatomy and Lesion Study” course in collaboration with another

lab member of the NPSY.Lab. The lectures where held in the NPSY.Lab (Verona).


• Teaching skills.

• Communication skills.

• Group work.

7.

DATE April 2018-June 2018


SUMMARY

During this period, I collected the behavioral data from healthy controls and hemiplegic patients

for the Time Discrimination and the Action Timing Estimation studies, in the rehabilitation unit of

Sacro Cuore Hospital of Negrar. The Bachelor Degree student that I started supervising last year

participated to the data collection and the psychologist Valeria Gobbetto collaborated for patients’

neuropsychological assessment.


• Neuropsychological assessment skills.

• Coordination of a team.

8.

DATE May 2018-August 2018


SUMMARY

In this two months, in collaboration with the visiting student, I have thought of a study about how

the sense of agency is modulated by the motor impairment and how the level of consciousness

about the deficit affects the sense of agency. In particular, in this study we aimed to implicitly

investigate the sense of agency via the intentional binding paradigm. The paradigm required the

participants to press a button whenever then want to, after listening to an acoustic stimulus that

remarked the beginning of the trial. After participants’ press, another acoustic stimulus is released

and participants are asked to estimate the time interval between their press and the successive

stimulus. The task is devised in two blocks, 1) in one block they are required to actually press the

button, 2) in the other one they are required to keep the finger on the button, without performing

the press, the button in this case will be pushed down by a confederate. The button has been

modified as to prevent the participant to notice how/when the button is pulled down. According to

our predictions, compared to controls 1) hemiplegic patients will estimate the time interval longer

than controls in both the conditions (decreased sense of agency), 2) while patients with awareness

disturbances will estimate the interval shorter in both the conditions (increased sense of agency).

In this months, I have studied the literature about the subject, I have programmed the paradigm on

e-prime and crafted the experimental settings. Furthermore, I piloted the study on healthy controls

and hemiplegic patients.




• Programming of experimental paradigm.

• Pilot data collection and critical reasoning of preliminary results.

• Student supervision.


13.

DATE February 2017-September 2017

ACTIVITY Funding, grants and conferences news. Organization of seminars.

SUMMARY

Throughout the whole academic year I was in charge, with Adriano Acciarino and Michael Schepisi,

of the searching for grants and funding opportunities, as to communicate them periodically to the

other lab members. Furthermore, I have participated to the organization of seminars in the

context of the Verona Lab.


• Development of communication skills.

• Development of team-working skills.

ONGOING PROJECTS

1.

DATE August 2018-


SUMMARY

Since August, I am collaborating with the authors (both national and international) of the

multicentric study on the disconnections in Anosognosia for Hemiplegia in the ultimate version of

the scientific paper about the study and its submission.




• Submission process of a scientific paper.

2.

DATE August 2018-


SUMMARY

In August, I have started the analysis of the DTI data that has been collected last year for the Single

Case study. The analysis has been performed in collaboration with the BCBLab. I am currently

writing the scientific paper about the study, where the results from the neuropsychological data

and the tractography will be discussed.


• DTI data analysis



3.

DATE 2017-2018

ACTIVITY Student supervision

SUMMARY

Throughout the year, I have supervised the thesis project of a BD student, and I have started to

supervise the thesis project of another BD student in September.


• Student supervision.


3.

DATE 2017-2018

ACTIVITY Funding

SUMMARY

Throughout the year, I have been involved as a group member in the writing of projects for the

applications to some fundings for scientific research, namely 1) PRIN 2017 2) Giovani Ricercatori

(GR) 2018, and 3) BIAL grant 2018.


• Writing of a funding grant application.

• Collaboration with other experts.

TALKS

This year, I gave two oral presentation at two international conferences

DATE 27/05/2018

• MeeTo (Turin): oral presentation entitled “The role of white matter disconnections in

anosognosia for hemiplegia.”

DATE 29/06/2018

• BRNet (Edinburgh); oral presentation entitled “Neural correlates of anosognosia for

hemiplegia: a white matter disconnection study”.


• Development of communication skills

CONFERENCES

ACTIVITY Conference

SUMMARY

Throughout the year, I attended many seminars, workshop and conferences organized by La

Sapienza, the University of Verona and the Brain and Spinal Cord Institute (Paris). The main

seminars were:

• Prof. Paul Croxon: Network changes and plasticity in the non-human primate brain (Paris).

• PhD Baruch Eitam: Motivation from control (Paris)

• Prof. Yaniv Assaf: Brain evolution and neuroplasticity (Paris)

• PhD Christian Ruff: Dazed and confused? Neural origins of behavioral variability in value-

based choice (Paris)

• MD Maddalena Becherle: Theory of Mind, a review (Verona)

• PhD Michele Scandola: P-value crisis (Verona)

• PhD Michele Scandola: A practical introduction to Baesyan statistics

• PhD Michele Scandola: Moving in space in a wheelchair: the embodiment of one’s own

wheelchair and its effects on navigational space representation in people with spinal cord

(Verona)

• Prof. Paolo Riva: The Many Faces of Social Exclusion (Rome)

• PhD Paul Jenkinson: Interoceptive and exteroceptive ingredients of the bodily self (Rome)

• Dr Vittorio Schweiger: Fibromialgia: paradigma della complessità (Verona)


• Acquiring specific knowledge on different fields

SEMINARS

Throughout the year I gave many seminars and oral presentations during lab-meetings.

• Paris 18th December: Neural bases of Anosognosia for Hemiplegia.

• Rome 13th February & Verona, 16th February: The role of white matter disconnections in

Anosognosia for Hemiplegia.

• Verona 16th April: Temporal Discrimination.


• Improving the research studies through the feedback of fellow researchers


GRANTS

DATE 29/06/2018

SUMMARY

In the context of the BRNet conference held in Edinburgh, I was awarded with a travel grant for my

oral presentation.

SCHOOLS

DATE 03rd - 08th /09/2018

SUMMARY

In these dates I have attended the neuroanatomy summer school “Visceral Mind”.


• In depth knowledge of neuroanatomy.

1st year

1.

DATE November 2016-Jenuary 2017


SUMMARY

During these months, I firstly collected and studied the literature on Anosognosia for Hemiplegia

(AHP), in order to strength my basic knowledge about the subject and to get familiar with new

trends in the field. Then, I dealt with the literature on time perception, and formulated some first

hypothesis on the investigation of the abilities of action timing estimation into patients population

suffering from AHP. I hypothesized that the tasks that better suited to this purpose were a visual-

occluding task, during which patients were required to watch videos of actions and had to

estimate their duration, and a same-different task, which required patients to judge whether two

videos had the same duration or not. In addition, I thought about two more paradigms (a temporal

estimation and a same-different tasks) to control for patients’ timing estimation abilities excluding

the action variable.




2.

DATE December 2016-February 2017


SUMMARY

In this period, I took part in a single case study (headed by Valentina Moro) regarding the lack of

awareness for deficits in social cognition and Theory of Mind in a traumatic brain injury patient. I

read in depth the specific literature and assisted to the patient’s neuropsychological assessment.


• Learning the implementation of a single case study.

• Acquiring the skill of leading a neuropsychological assessment for awareness deficits and

theory of mind impairment.

• Team-working with different professional personalities (physiotherapist, psychologist).

3.

DATE 21-23 February 2017

ACTIVITY Workshop

SUMMARY

In these dates, I attended a DTI Workshop at the King’s College of London. The workshop was

organized by Marco Catani and colleagues, from the Natbrainlab.


• Analysis of Diffusion Weighted data through FSL, Explore DTI, StarTrack and Trackvis

softwares.

• Basic knowledge of neuroanatomy.

• Public relations with other academic personalities.

4.

DATE March 2017-June2017


SUMMARY

During this period, I implemented the behavioral tasks for the experimental study on Time

estimation in AHP. I filmed the videos and edited them. Then, I built the paradigms on E-Prime. I

piloted the study both on patients and control subjects, in order to preliminary observe their

performance and to verify the functioning of the methodological assessment.


• Video editing

• Programming video-presentations on E-Prime

• Familiarizing with the experimental population.

5.

DATE 09-10 May 2017

ACTIVITY Workshop

SUMMARY

In these dates, I attended the BrainHack workshop, held in Paris by Michel Thiebaut De Schotten

and his collaborators from the Frontlab.


• New trends in neuroimaging pre-processing.

• Advanced knowledge of the BCBToolkit.

• Public relations with other academic personalities.

6.

DATE April 2017 June 2017


SUMMARY

In these months, I planned the Diffusion Tensor Imaging study of the single case. First, I performed

the indirect analysis of white matter tracts through the BCBToolkit software. Then, I collected and

analyzed the DTI data of the traumatic brain injury patient and three controls.


• Implementation of a DTI study

• Basic programming skills within a Linux environment.

• Imaging preprocessing and tractography data analysis.

• Professional relation and coordination with the radiology unit stuff

7.

DATE July 2017 September 2017


SUMMARY

During this period, I collected the behavioral data from healthy controls and hemiplegic patients

patients for the Time Estimation study, in the rehabilitation unit of Sacro Cuore Hospital of Negrar.

This work was supervised by Professor Valentina Moro and the psychologist Valeria Gobbetto

collaborated for patients’ neuropsychological assessment. I am currently analyzing the collected

data by means of Statistica and R softwares, with the supervision of Michele Scandola.


• Coordination of a team

• Indipendent data collection from a hospitalized population

• Independent statistical analysis

8.

DATE September 2017

ACTIVITY Research activity and abroad research period

SUMMARY

I am currently involved in an advanced lesion analysis study, in collaboration with Michel Thiebaut

De Schotten and supervised by Valentina Moro, at the Institute of Brain and Spinal Corde,

Salpetriere Hospital of Paris. I am performing the analysis and contributing to the theoretical

development of the study, which aims to shed lights on the neural basis of AHP through the

indirect analysis of white matter tracts of lesional data collected from previous studies.


• Statistical analysis of neuroimaging data through the BCBToolkit and the FSL softwares

• Collaboration with an international team

9.

DATE September 2017

ACTIVITY Poster presentation

SUMMARY

In this month, I presented two posters at two international conferences: the Federation of

European Society of Neuropsychology (FESN) and the Cognitive Neuroscience of Executive

Functions conferences, held in Maastricht and in Padua, respectively.


• Wrighting of a scientific abstract

• Designing of a scientific poster

• Oral divulgation of my research

• Public relations with other academic personalities

10.

DATE November 2016-September 2017

ACTIVITY Conferences and Workshops

SUMMARY

Throughout the year, I attended many seminars, workshop and conferences organized by La

Sapienza and the University of Verona. The main seminars were:

• PhD Michele Scandola: Multilevel-Analysis Workshop (Rome)

• International Conference on Spinal Cord Lesions (Rome)

• Prof. Valentina Moro: Embodied Cognition Theories (Verona)

• PhD Michele Scandola: Affective Touch in Spinal Cord Lesions (Verona)

• PhD Michele Scandola, Martina Costamagna: Introduction to PsychoPy: an easy and free

platform for neuroscience, psychology and psychophisics experiments (Verona)

• Seminars and conferences held in the Lab-retreat in Gerace (Gerace)

• FESN, international conference (Maastricht)


• Acquiring specific knowledge on different fields

11.

DATE November 2016-September 2017

ACTIVITY Lab-meetings presentation

SUMMARY

Throughout the year, I presented my research work and shared my experience during several lab-

meetings, both in Rome and in Verona:

• New Trends in AHP (21/11/2017, Verona). In this meeting I presented the results of my

literature research on the most recent studies and theories on AHP.

• Motor-Awareness and Time perception in Brain Damaged Patients (Rome,17/01/2017). In

this lab-meeting I presented the rationale of my behavioral study on timing estimation of

actions in AHP patients.

• Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Speaker’s Corner (Rome, 16/03/2017). During the speaker’s

corner of this lab-meeting, I shared my experience of the workshop on DTI that I attended

in London.

• Basics of DTI (Verona, 25/05/2017). During this lab-meeting, I held a seminar on physics

principles of Diffusion Weighted Imaging, the basics of DTI processing and the preliminary

results of the tractography analysis from the single case patient.


• Improving the research studies through the feedback of fellow researchers


12.


ACTIVITY Student Supervising

SUMMARY

I am currently supervising the thesis work of two undergraduated bachelor students. One of them

participated to the implementation of the behavioral study and collaborated to the data collection from the

patients population. Both of them are collecting data from healthy participants.


• Development of communication and teaching skills

• Coordination of a team-work

13.


ACTIVITY Funding, grants and conferences news

SUMMARY

Throughout the whole academic year I was in charge, with Adriano Acciarino and Michael Schepisi,

of the searching for grants and funding opportunities, as to communicate them periodically to the

other lab members.



• Development of team-working skills

Documents

Valentina Pacella, 2ndyear PhD student Progress Report · Throughout the year, I have supervised the thesis project of a BD student, and I have started to supervise the thesis project