Sensorimotor Experiences
and
Mental Representations
Embedded Files
What We Do
What We Do
Perception and representation: how we see and interpret, how we make sense and represent the external world.
Research activities within this topic exploit advanced tools in cognitive neuroscience to characterize the neural correlates of perception and content-specific mental representations, semantic processing, knowledge organization, and action representation
ONGOING PROJECTS
How does the brain transform sensory input into meaningful percepts?
We investigate how we see, hear, and interpret the world around us through the lens of cognitive neuroscience.What are the neural codes that support mental representations and conceptual knowledge?
We study how specific contents—objects, actions, meanings—are represented in the brain.How are abstract concepts grounded in sensory and motor systems?
From perception to action, we explore how the brain bridges experience and abstraction.How is knowledge about the world organized in the brain under naturalistic conditions?
Using movies, stories, and real-life scenarios, we examine how the brain processes information in context.Can we decode the content of thoughts and perceptions using neuroimaging?
We apply advanced decoding and encoding models to reveal the structure of neural representations.How does the brain support action understanding and execution?
We link action representation to motor control, learning, and applications in rehabilitation.
Who We Are
Who We Are
EMILIANORICCIARDI
STEFANIA
ORESTA
ORESTA
PhD Student
FRANCESCASETTI
Research Collaborator, PhD
MARCELLAROMEO
PhD Student
FRANCESCASIMONELLI
Research Collaborator, PhD
LAURA MARRAS
PhD Student
ANDREACOMETA
Research Collaborator, PhD
RICCARDO VELLA
PhD Student
ALESSANDROINGENITO
PhD Student
FAISAL RASHID
PhD Student
What We Publish
What We Publish
Neural networks associated with eye movements in congenital blindness (2024)
Koba C, Crimi A, Collignon O, Ricciardi E, Hasson U.
Eur J Neurosci. 2024 Aug;60(4):4624-4638. doi: 10.1111/ejn.16459
ABSTRACT: Recent studies have shown that during the typical resting-state, echo planar imaging (EPI) time series obtained from the eye orbit area correlate with brain regions associated with oculomotor control and lower-level visual cortex. Here, we asked whether congenitally blind (CB) shows similar patterns, suggesting a hard-wired constraint on connectivity. We find that orbital EPI signals in CB do correlate with activity in the motor cortex, but less so with activity in the visual cortex. However, the temporal patterns of this eye movement-related signal differed strongly between CB and sighted controls. Furthermore, in CB, a few participants showed uncoordinated orbital EPI signals between the two eyes, each correlated with activity in different brain networks. Our findings suggest a retained circuitry between motor cortex and eye movements in blind, but also a moderate reorganization due to the absence of visual input, and the inability of CB to control their eye movements or sense their positions.
Sensitivity and specificity of the action observation network to kinematics, target object, and gesture meaning
Simonelli, Handjaras, Benuzzi, Bernardi, Leo, Duzzi, Cecchetti, Nichelli, Porro, Pietrini, Ricciardi, Lui.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2024 Aug 1;45(11):e26762. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26762.
ABSTRACT: Hierarchical models have been proposed to explain how the brain encodes actions, whereby different areas represent different features, such as gesture kinematics, target object, action goal, and meaning. The visual processing of action-related information is distributed over a well-known network of brain regions spanning separate anatomical areas, attuned to specific stimulus properties, and referred to as action observation network (AON). To determine the brain organization of these features, we measured representational geometries during the observation of a large set of transitive and intransitive gestures in two independent functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments. We provided evidence for a partial dissociation between kinematics, object characteristics, and action meaning in the occipito-parietal, ventro-temporal, and lateral occipito-temporal cortex, respectively. Importantly, most of the AON showed low specificity to all the explored features, and representational spaces sharing similar information content were spread across the cortex without being anatomically adjacent. Overall, our results support the notion that the AON relies on overlapping and distributed coding and may act as a unique representational space instead of mapping features in a modular and segregated manner.
Dissecting abstract, modality-specific and experience-dependent coding of affect in the human brain
Lettieri, Handjaras, Cappello, Setti, Bottari, Bruno, Diano, Leo, Tinti, Garbarini, Pietrini, Ricciardi, CecchettiScience Advances, 2024. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk6840ABSTRACT:
Ricciardi E, Pietrini P. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 2023 doi: 10.1080/23273798.2023.2218502
ABSTRACT: This is a commentary on Calzavarini (2023), Rethinking Modality-Specificity in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Concrete Word Meaning: A Position Paper 10.1080/23273798.2023.2173789.
A modality-independent proto-organization of human multisensory areas
Setti F, Handjaras G, Bottari D, Leo A, Diano M, Bruno V, Tinti C, Cecchetti L, Garbarini F, Pietrini P, Ricciardi E. Nat Hum Behav 2023 doi: 10.1038/s41562-022-01507-3ABSTRACT: The processing of multisensory information is based upon the capacity of brain regions, such as the superior temporal cortex, to combine information across modalities. However, it is still unclear whether the representation of coherent auditory and visual events requires any prior audiovisual experience to develop and function. Here we measured brain synchronization during the presentation of an audiovisual, audio-only or video-only version of the same narrative in distinct groups of sensory-deprived (congenitally blind and deaf) and typically developed individuals. Intersubject correlation analysis revealed that the superior temporal cortex was synchronized across auditory and visual conditions, even in sensory-deprived individuals who lack any audiovisual experience. This synchronization was primarily mediated by low-level perceptual features, and relied on a similar modality-independent topographical organization of slow temporal dynamics. The human superior temporal cortex is naturally endowed with a functional scaffolding to yield a common representation across multisensory events.
Overlapping and specific neural correlates for empathizing, affective mentalizing, and cognitive mentalizing: A coordinate- based meta-analytic study
Arioli M, Cattaneo Z, Ricciardi E, Canessa N. Hum Brain Mapp. 2021 doi: 10.1002/hbm.25570ABSTRACT: While the discussion on the foundations of social understanding mainly revolves around the notions of empathy, affective mentalizing, and cognitive mentalizing, their degree of overlap versus specificity is still unclear. We took a meta-analytic approach to unveil the neural bases of cognitive mentalizing, affective mentalizing, and empa- thy, both in healthy individuals and pathological conditions characterized by social deficits such as schizophrenia and autism. We observed partially overlapping net- works for cognitive and affective mentalizing in the medial prefrontal, posterior cin- gulate, and lateral temporal cortex, while empathy mainly engaged fronto-insular, somatosensory, and anterior cingulate cortex. Adjacent process-specific regions in the posterior lateral temporal, ventrolateral, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex might underpin a transition from abstract representations of cognitive mental states detached from sensory facets to emotionally-charged representations of affective mental states. Altered mentalizing-related activity involved distinct sectors of the posterior lateral temporal cortex in schizophrenia and autism, while only the latter group displayed abnormal empathy related activity in the amygdala. These data might inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social cognitive deficits.
U-Limb: A multi-modal, multi-center database on arm motion control in healthy and post-stroke conditions
Averta G, Barontini F, Catrambone V, Haddadin S, Handjaras G, Held JPO, Hu T, Jakubowitz E, Kanzler CM, Kühn J, Lambercy O, Leo A, Obermeier A, Ricciardi E, Schwarz A, Valenza G, Bicchi A, Bianchi M. Gigascience. 2021 Jun 18;10(6):giab043. doi: 10.1093/gigascience/giab043.ABSTRACT: Background: Shedding light on the neuroscientific mechanisms of human upper limb motor control, in both healthy and disease conditions (e.g., after a stroke), can help to devise effective tools for a quantitative evaluation of the impaired conditions, and to properly inform the rehabilitative process. Furthermore, the design and control of mechatronic devices can also benefit from such neuroscientific outcomes, with important implications for assistive and rehabilitation robotics and advanced human-machine interaction. To reach these goals, we believe that an exhaustive data collection on human behavior is a mandatory step. For this reason, we release U-Limb, a large, multi-modal, multi-center data collection on human upper limb movements, with the aim of fostering trans-disciplinary cross-fertilization.Contribution: This collection of signals consists of data from 91 able-bodied and 65 post-stroke participants and is organized at 3 levels: (i) upper limb daily living activities, during which kinematic and physiological signals (electromyography, electro-encephalography, and electrocardiography) were recorded; (ii) force-kinematic behavior during precise manipulation tasks with a haptic device; and (iii) brain activity during hand control using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Shape coding in occipito-temporal cortex relies on object silhouette, curvature, and medial axis
Papale P, Leo A, Handjaras G, Cecchetti L, Pietrini P, Ricciardi E. J Neurophysiol. 2020 Dec 1;124(6):1560-1570. doi: 10.1152/jn.00212.2020. Epub 2020 Oct 14.ABSTRACT: Object recognition relies on different transformations of the retinal input, carried out by the visual system, that range from local contrast to object shape and category. While some of those transformations are thought to occur at specific stages of the visual hierarchy, the features they represent are correlated (e.g., object shape and identity) and selectivity for the same feature overlaps in many brain regions. This may be explained either by collinearity across representations or may instead reflect the coding of multiple dimensions by the same cortical population. Moreover, orthogonal and shared components may differently impact distinctive stages of the visual hierarchy. We recorded functional MRI activity while participants passively attended to object images and employed a statistical approach that partitioned orthogonal and shared object representations to reveal their relative impact on brain processing. Orthogonal shape representations (silhouette, curvature, and medial axis) independently explained distinct and overlapping clusters of selectivity in the occitotemporal and parietal cortex. Moreover, we show that the relevance of shared representations linearly increases moving from posterior to anterior regions. These results indicate that the visual cortex encodes shared relations between different features in a topographic fashion and that object shape is encoded along different dimensions, each representing orthogonal features.
The sensory-deprived brain as a unique tool to understand brain development and function
Ricciardi E, Bottari D, Ptito M, Roeder B, Pietrini P. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 108:78-82. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.10.017. Epub 2019 Oct 28, Jan 2020.On October 11th–13th 2018, the second edition of “The Blind Brain Workshop” was held in Lucca (Italy), which gathered most among the leading worldwide experts in the study of the sensory-deprived brain. The aim of the workshop was to tackle, from multiple and different perspectives, the current conceptual and methodological challenges on the topic and to understand how perceptual experience sculpts the brain during development, as well as in adulthood.Altogether, the contributions of this three-day workshop empha- sized that the current understanding of the structural and functional organization as well as the development of the brain has significantly been promoted by the studies on the consequences of sensory-depri- vation both in humans and animals. Nevertheless, by providing a un- ique opportunity for a direct comparison of different sensory-depriva- tion models, the workshop has uncovered open aspects in blindness, deafness and even somatosensory deprivation research. Suggestions for a substantial rethinking were postulated. The event additionally high- lighted the role of early sensory experiences for functional develop- ment. In particular, the research on sensory-restoration has provided first evidence for the role of experience in typical development of dif- ferent neural systems.
See the whole Special Issue 'Rethinking the sensory-deprived brain: hints from the Blind Brain Workshop 2018' on Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
See the whole Special Issue 'Rethinking the sensory-deprived brain: hints from the Blind Brain Workshop 2018' on Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
Common spatiotemporal processing of visual features shapes object representation.
Papale P, Betta M, Handjaras G, Malfatti G, Rampinini AC, Cecchetti L, Pietrini P, Ricciardi E, Turella L, Leo A. Scientific Reports, 9(1),7601, 2019.ABSTRACT: Biological vision relies on representations of the physical world at different levels of complexity.Relevant features span from simple low-level properties, as contrast and spatial frequencies, to object-based attributes, as shape and category. However, how these features are integrated into coherent percepts is still debated. Moreover, these dimensions often share common biases: for instance, stimuli from the same category (e.g., tools) may have similar shapes. Here, using magnetoencephalography, we revealed the temporal dynamics of feature processing in human subjects attending to objects from six semantic categories. By employing Relative Weights Analysis, we mitigated collinearity between model-based descriptions of stimuli and showed that low-level properties (contrast and spatial frequencies), shape (medial-axis) and category are represented within the same spatial locationsearly in time: 100–150 ms after stimulus onset. This fast and overlapping processing may result fromindependent parallel computations, with categorical representation emerging later than the onsetof low-level feature processing, yet before shape coding. Categorical information is represented both before and after shape, suggesting a role for this feature in the refinement of categorical matching.
How concepts are encoded in the human brain: A modality independent, category-based cortical organization of semantic knowledge
Handjaras G, Ricciardi E (co-first author), Leo A, Lenci A, Cecchetti L, Cosottini M, Marotta G, Pietrini P. Neuroimage, 135:232-242, 2016ABSTRACT: How conceptual knowledge is represented in the human brain remains to be determined. To address the differ- ential role of low-level sensory-based and high-level abstract features in semantic processing, we combined be- havioral studies of linguistic production and brain activity measures by functional magnetic resonance imaging in sighted and congenitally blind individuals while they performed a property-generation task with concrete nouns from eight categories, presented through visual and/or auditory modalities. Patterns of neural activity within a large semantic cortical network that comprised parahippocampal, lateral occipital, temporo-parieto-occipital and inferior parietal cortices correlated with linguistic production and were in- dependent both from the modality of stimulus presentation (either visual or auditory) and the (lack of) visual experience. In contrast, selected modality-dependent differences were observed only when the analysis was lim- ited to the individual regions within the semantic cortical network. We conclude that conceptual knowledge in the human brain relies on a distributed, modality-independent cortical representation that integrates the partial category and modality specific information retained at a regional level.
See also Handjaras G, Leo A, Cecchetti L, Papale P, Lenci A, Marotta G, Pietrini P, Ricciardi E. Modality-independent encoding of individual concepts in the left parietal cortex. Neuropsychologia. 105:39-49, 2017 - doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.05.001
See also Handjaras G, Leo A, Cecchetti L, Papale P, Lenci A, Marotta G, Pietrini P, Ricciardi E. Modality-independent encoding of individual concepts in the left parietal cortex. Neuropsychologia. 105:39-49, 2017 - doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.05.001
A synergy-based hand control is encoded in human motor cortical areas
Leo A, Handjaras G, Bianchi M, Marino H, Gabiccini M, Guidi A, Scilingo EP, Pietrini P, Bicchi A, Santello M, Ricciardi E. Elife, 2016 Feb 16;5 pii: e13420. doi: 10.7554/eLife.13420ABSTRACT: How the human brain controls hand movements to carry out different tasks is still debated. The concept of synergy has been proposed to indicate functional modules that may simplify the control of hand postures by simultaneously recruiting sets of muscles and joints. However, whether and to what extent synergic hand postures are encoded as such at a cortical level remains unknown. Here, we combined kinematic, electromyography, and brain activity measures obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging while subjects performed a variety of movements towards virtual objects. Hand postural information, encoded through kinematic synergies, were represented in cortical areas devoted to hand motor control and successfully discriminated individual grasping movements, significantly outperforming alternative somatotopic or muscle-based models. Importantly, hand postural synergies were predicted by neural activation patterns within primary motor cortex. These findings support a novel cortical organization for hand movement control and open potential applications for brain-computer interfaces and neuroprostheses.
Our collaborations
Our collaborations
Corrado Sinigaglia - University of Milan, Italy
Francesca Garbarini - University of Turin, Italy
Nadia Bolognini - University of Milan Bicocca, Italy
Marco Tamietto - University of Turin, Italy
Zaira Cattaneo - University of Bergamo, Italy
Tomaso Vecchi - University of Pavia, Italy
Simone Rossi - University of Siena, Italy
Viviana Betti - University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy
Luca Turella - University of Trento, Italy
Silvestro Micera and Alberto Mazzoni - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy
Michele Emdin - Fondazione Toscana 'G. Monasterio'/SSSA-Pisa, Italy
James V. Haxby - Dartmouth College - USA
What We Develop
What We Develop
fMRI encoding/decoding algorithms
Modelling approaches
Our Recent Talks and Presentations
Our Recent Talks and Presentations
Emiliano Ricciardi - Invited Lectures: Rethinking the sensory deprived brain: how blindness improved our vision on brain function” – November 23, 2023 – ETH, Zurich, Switzerland; December 14, 2023 – IRCSS Medea, Bosisio Parini; May 13, 2024 - Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam; May 21, 2024 -University of Parma; MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, June 12, 2025
Emiliano Ricciardi - Oral presentation: “A modality independent proto-organization of human multisensory areas”, XIII Congresso Nazionale Associazione Italiana Risonanza Magnetica in Medicina, November 24, 2022 – Pisa, Italy
Francesca Setti - Oral presentation: 'A modality independent proto-organization of human multisensory areas', Symposium 'New insights on multisensory brain organization from MVPA to high field fMRI', Chair(s): Gaglianese A, Murray MM. 20th International Multisensory Research Forum, Ulm University, July 04-07, 2022
Emiliano Ricciardi - Online invited Lecture: ““Rethinking the sensory deprived brain”, Neurowebinars, April 1, 2022
Francesca Setti, Adrian Onicas and Francesca Simonelli - Poster presentation at Virtual Annual Meeting of the Human Brain Mapping Organization 2020 - June 2020
Decalogo per il benessere cerebrale | Emiliano Ricciardi | TEDxSiena
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