Brainbox Initiative Webinar: Role of the Medial Posterior Parietal Cortex in Spatial Attention

Date:
December 12th, 14:00 GMT

Abstract:
Attention is useful for our manual goal-oriented interactions and plays a key role in motor control. Neuroimaging and single cell recordings studies show that the medial posterior parietal cortex is activated during shifts of covert attention. Also, transcranial magnetic stimulation studies further support this involvement. Nevertheless, less clear is the role of this brain region in the interplay between spatial attention and motor control.

In this webinar, Professor Rossella Breveglieri will present results obtained with transcranial magnetic stimulation that suggest that the medial posterior parietal cortex is neither involved in reach planning per se, nor in sustained covert attention in absence of a reach plan, but it is specifically involved in maintaining attention to reaching targets. 

Speaker: Professor Rossella Breveglieri
Rossella Breveglieri obtained her PhD in Neurophysiology in 2004 at the University of Bologna (Italy). She was Assistant Professor from 2008 and then Associate Professor from 2014 in the same University. Rossella Breveglieri's research interests are about the brain mechanisms of visuomotor behavior, investigated through single cell recordings (from 2000 to 2018) and then through transcranial magnetic stimulation. She authored 45 peer-reviewed papers in international neuroscience journals and more than 90 conference abstracts. Her H index is 26.