Born in Naples, 22/01/1958.
Academic degree: MD degree, University of Milan (110 cum laude); Specialization in Neurology, University of Milan; PhD in Neurological Sciences, University of Milano.
Present position: Full Professor, Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia.
2019- present Delegate with responsibility for areas concerning the University’s Third Mission activities, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
2016- present Coordinator of the PhD program in “Psychology, Neuroscience and Data Science”, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
2001-present Director of the Centro di Neuropsicologia Cognitiva, ASST Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda, Milan, Italy.
Previous positions:
2000-2011 Associated Professor, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
1994-2000 Senior registrar Neurologist, Unità Operativa di Neurologia, Ospedale Niguarda, Milan, Italy.
1992-1994 Research Fellow, MRC Cyclotron Unit, Hammersmith Hospital, London, U.K.
1990-1992 Senior registrar Neurologist, Unità Operativa di Neurologia, Ospedale Niguarda, Milan, Italy.
1986-1988 Resident MD, Neurology Department, University of Milan, Italy.
1979-1981 Student Internship, Neurology Department, University of Milan, Italy.
Gabriella Bottini is a Full Professor at the Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Pavia and Director of the Cognitive Neuropsychology Centre at Niguarda Hospital. She focused her research on the topic of neuropsychological disorders associated with brain lesions and neurodegenerative diseases, mainly involving body representations (BRs), motor awareness, body ownership and sensory-motor integration. She also developed studies on healthy subjects to construct cognitive models concerning mental body representation.
In the Cognitive Neuropsychology Centre at Niguarda Hospital that she leads, she studies patients with different neurological and psychiatric diseases. This has given her the opportunity to explore the dynamic aspects of BRs with diverse physiological manipulations, namely caloric vestibular stimulation showing transient remission of the body representation impairments from the most elementary deficits (tactile imperception) up to more complex manifestations such as somatoparaphrenia and motor anosognosia or deficits of mental imagery. More recently she expanded her interested in models of body representation and motor awareness in the lifespan with particular interest on the behavioural and neurobiological plasticity in graceful and pathological ageing. She is also interested in studying the normal and pathological correlates of space representation (neglect), the neuropsychological profile of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, and cognitive impairment, through behavioural and neuroimaging techniques. She is also interested in the interaction between Neuroscience and Law, mainly on its implication in patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases.
Fields of Interest:
Neuropsychology; Forensic Neuropsychology; Neuropsychology of Epilepsy; Neglect; Body representation; Language and right hemisphere; Functional Magnetic Resonance (fMRI); Neuroscience and Society, Neuroethics.