Bridging the gap of neuronal communication by means of intelligent hybrid systems
Michela Chiappalone
Laboratory Head
@ NINE Lab – IIT, Italy
Supervisor & Coordinator
I am an Electronic Engineer and I hold a Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. I currently hold a Researcher position at IIT, where I lead the Neural Interface & NEurorehabilitation (NINE) laboratory.
My main research interests include dynamics and plasticity of healthy and injured neuronal assemblies, neuromodulation after stroke and traumatic brain injury, closed-loop architectures and algorithms for multichannel data analysis.
I graduated in Electronic Engineering summa cum laude at University of Genova, Italy, in 1999 and I obtained a PhD in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science from the same University in 2003.
During the last year of my PhD training, I have been visiting scholar at at the Dept. of Physiology of the Northwestern University (Chicago, IL, USA), under the supervision of Prof F.A. Mussa-Ivaldi, working on the first-ever developed bi-directional neuro-robotic system, involving the brain of a sea lamprey connected to a small mobile robot.
From 2003 to 2006 I received a fellowship from the University of Genova, Italy under the supervision of Prof. S. Martinoia, being involved in several national and international projects on neuroengineering studies.
In 2004 I won the Italian PATRON PhD Award for the best PhD dissertation in the bioengineering field.
In 2012 I was awarded a FET Young Explorers grant by the European Commission as Coordinator of the project BRAIN BOW.
From January to February 2015, I have been Visiting Professor at the Center on Aging of the Kansas University Medical Center, led by Prof. Randoph J. Nudo.
Since 2013, I hold a Researcher position at IIT, where I lead the Neural Interface and NEurorehabilitation (NINE) lab.
My main research interests include:
Dynamics and plasticity of healthy and injured neuronal assemblies
Neuromodulation after stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury in animal models
Closed-loop architectures
In vitro neuronal cultures as a tool for high-throughput neuropharmacological and neurotoxicological screening
Algorithms for multichannel data analysis
I contributed to all these activities with 47 publications in International Journals, 5 book chapters and more than 70 contributions at international conferences.
