Pain and placebo/nocebo effects
same pain different subjective ratings
I investigate the neural basis of pain and placebo/nocebo, identifying ways to modulate pain in healthy people and chronic pain patients, using acupuncture, behavioural experiments and neuromodulation.
Communicative language
same utterance different communicative functions
During my doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge and Medical Research Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, I conducted a series of experiments elucidating the neurobiological underpinnings of pragmatic speech act processing, contributing to the emerging field of neuropragmatics.
Language acquisition
same language different dialects
I have a strong interest in language acquisition and brain maturation. Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), my colleagues and I demonstrated that 5 but not 3-month old infants can distinguish accents of the same (native) language, a skill enabled by the development of the left perisylvian brain network.