Emiliano_Macaluso

Research interests

My main research interest and expertise concerns the neural basis of multisensory integration, space perception and attention. I have used several non-invasive brain imaging and behavioural techniques to investigate these processes in the human brain. These include: functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Event-related Brain Potentials (ERP), plus analyses of eye-movement patterns.

Most recently, my research has focused on the interplay between different cognitive systems (e.g. attention and memory) during the processing of complex and naturalistic, life-like stimuli. I seek to understand these mechanisms in term of both the mapping specific processes to anatomically localised regions and the dynamic changes of functional coupling between brain areas.

Of particular interest to me are the dynamic interactions arising from the combination of top-down endogenous signals related to task, expectations and prior knowloadge, with bottom-up inputs triggered by stimuli in the external world.

I believe that understanding these interactions will allow us to uncover the mechanisms of selection and integration that regulate the functioning of the human brain in everyday life.

Achievements track-record

I was awarded my PhD at University College London (UK) in 2000. After working as a PostDoc at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (London, UK), in 2004 I moved to the Fondazione Santa Lucia (Rome, IT), where I set up and directed the Neuroimaging Laboratory. Since 2015, I am Professor of Neuroimaging at the UFR-Biosciences of the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, and I carry out my research at the ImpAct team of the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (Lyon, FR).

I am Author of more than one hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers, including publications in high-impact factor journals such as Science (2 papers), Neuron (4 papers) and Current Biology (2 papers). I have also published important review papers (e.g. in Trends in Neuroscience), and I have co-authored several book chapters on attention and multisensory processing.

I am Co-Editor of Experimental Brain Research, and Associate Editor of Neuroscience Letters and of Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.

In 2010 I have been awarded an ERC Starting-Grant to investigate mechanisms of selection and integration in complex and dynamic environments (MindTravel).