Chiara Barattieri, Project Manager

Project Manager of the European project neuGRID. (www.neuGRID.eu)

Marina Boccardi, psychologist

After a degree in Experimental Psychology, she obtained her PhD in Neurosciences at the Kuopio University (Finland) discussing a work titled "MRI Studies in Frontotemporal Dementia (http://www.uku.fi/neuro/theses/80the.pdf)". Since 2000 she has been working for LENITEM (IRCCS Fatebenefratelli, Brescia), using traditional and advanced neuroimaging techniques to study human brain morphology, focusing mainly on psychobiological issues. She is author of a number of articles on cerebral morphometry in normal subjects or in subjects with neurodegenerative diseases (in particular, frontotemporal dementia) and she is recently exploring in depth the morphometrical correlations of psychiatric conditions.

Geoveffa Borsci, psychologist.

She has been collaborating with LENITEM since October 2005. She coordinated several Clinical Phase III trials with experimental drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, she is involved in the white matter hyperintensity detection using neuroimaging tools and the elaboration of MR images to analyze structures related with neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, she is interested to investigate morphostructural cerebral features associated to psychological issues, with particular focus on alexithymia.

Elisa Canu, psychologist

She has been collaborating with LENITEM since March 2005. She is mainly involved in the study of genes implicated in the neurodevelopment and their relationship with cerebral morphostructure. To this purpose, she is investigating Hoxa1. She is in charge of the survey of diagnostic and therapeutics procedures for mild cognitive and demential decay within national RNA (National Network for Alzheimer's) and UVA's (Alzheimer Evaluation Unit) projects. In the framework of the new Longitudinal Cognitive Project (PLC), she works as Case Manager for patients with cognitive impairments from his/her first visit to the diagnostic definition.

Anna Caroli, mathematician

Since July 2004 she is involved in research activities at LENITEM (Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging and Telemedicine) in the field of SPECT/PET functional imaging

Enrica Cavedo, psychologist

Degree in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive and Behavioural Neurosciences. She has been collaborating with LENITEM since her university stage (2007). She is currently involved in neuroimaging researches, using techniques which allow the visualization of atrophy in specific cerebral nuclei.

Daniela Costardi, psychologist

Since 2007 she has been collaborating with the Laboratory of Epidemiology Neuroimaging and Telemedicine (LENITEM), under the leadership of Dr. Giovanni B Frisoni, holding the role of Case Manager of the project for the Translational dell'Ambulatorio Memory (ATM) for the recruitment and the management of diagnostic and multidimensional problems of patients and related family members, from the first visit to the diagnostic definition; in addition she coordinates several Clinical Phase III trials with experimental drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. She is in charge of the CALL CENTER door for family members of people suffering from dementia at: www.infoalzheimer.it, and also of the recruitment of healthy volunteers for the current projects. She is also interested in the detection and evaluation of the psycho-emotional and medical disorders of people with subjective memory for the implementation of protocols for “breaking bad news” and for emotional support a diagnosis of incipient cognitive deterioration after a multidimensional diagnostic process.

Valeria Drago, neurologist

Dr Drago is an MD, graduated cum laude at University of Messina, Italy in July 2001. In the same institution she has done her internship in Internal Medicine and her Residency in Neurology (50/50 cum laude).
Since the beginning of her graduate education she maintained active involvement in conducting research. Her clinical and research interests evolved as she won a scholarship to serve as a physician in training at the S. Jose do Rio Preto Hospital, Brasil (1997) and the following year at the TelAviv Hospital, Israel (1998). In April 2004 she began her fellowship training at University of Florida (Gainesville, FL, USA) where she completed a three years fellowship in Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology. After the fellowship she got an appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor and kept working in Gainesville until July 2009. She is currently holding a courtesy appointment through the Department of Neurology at UF. She has been active in build international scientific collaboration through the Department of Neurology, University of Bologna, where she is currently holding a PhD position in sleep medicine, as well with the Institute Oasi Maria SS in Troina (EN), where she conducted several research projects from 2007 to 2009.
Many of the projects she conducted are focused on mechanisms of attention and neglect in normal subjects and patients affected by cerebrovascular disease and on cognitive and memory deficits associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as Frontal lobe’s functions and creativity.
She published about 50 scientific papers, all of them are published in peer reviewed international scientific journals, she authored and coauthored several invited chapters and serves as an ad hoc reviewers for several neurology and neuropsychology journals such as Neuropsychologia, Journal of Alzheimer Disease, Neuropsychology, European Journal of Neurology etc. She also has supervisory experience. As a fellow, she supervised undergraduate and medical students.

Samantha Galluzzi, physician, geriatrics specialist

Since 1999 she is research within the LENITEM (Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging and Telemedicine) in clinical application of neuroimaging in the diagnosis of cognitive decline.

Rossana Ganzola, psychologist

She began the stage for the Post-graduated degree in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive- Behavioural neurosciences in September 2006. This has been the starting point of her research activity and collaboration with LENITEM, which continues up to now. She is mainly in charge of the elaboration and evaluation of structural MR images of subjects affected by dementia and control subjects to analyze, quantitatively and qualitatively, structures involved in neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's in particular.

Marco Lorenzi, mathematician

From 2008 carries out research at the LENITEM. The activity focuses on the analysis of functional images (PET-PIB/FDG) in neurodegenerative diseases with special interest in Alzheimer's disease, focusing on the study of interactions between the phenomena of atrophy, and hypo-metabolism deposition of amyloid in the brain. Recently deals with analysis of images and fMRI resting state networks in the brain rest, studying the evolution in the disease following the administration of specific drugs (memantine).

Donata Paternicò, psychologist

She starts working for LENITEM in 2008 as data manager. She is charge of the management of clinical and neuroimaging data of patients from the Translational Memory Clinic (ATM). She organised and monitored the database containing data used for the research, ensuring the prompt availability to researchers. She is actually undergoing her specialization internship on the morphometrical study of cerebral anomalies in the Alzhemeir dementia and in psychiatric pathologies. She is also in charge of post-processing of neuroimages.

Michela Pievani, mathematician

She has been working at LENITEM since 2004. She in charge of processing and analysis of structural magnetic resonance images, using classical neuroimaging techniques (voxel-based-morphometry with SPM) and advanced (cortical pattern matching). Major fields of interest are (i) morpho-structural correlates of Alzheimer's disease and (ii) modification of white matter in mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

Annapaola Prestia, psychologist

She started collaborating with LENITEM' staff in 2003 for a project dealing with the calibration of a neuro-psychological screening test for Alzheimer dementia; after two years at the "Beata Vergine dell'Immacolata" Medical Centre for Rehabilitation in San Maurizio Canavese (TO) as researcher psychologist, since 2007 she has been working with LENITEM, dealing mainly with the analysis and elaboration of high-definition images for early diagnosis of the Azheimer's disease.

Alberto Redolfi, bio-informatic

Since February 2008 he worked as a researcher in the Laboratory of Epidemiology Neuroimaging and Telemedicine. His mission is to develop the neuGRID platform "A GRID-BASED e-Infrastructure for Data Archiving / COMMUNICATION AND computationally INTENSIVE APPLICATIONS IN THE MEDICAL SCIENCES", to enable studies of computationally intensive data-analysis.