Lab members
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GIORGIA SILANI
Position: group leader email: giorgia.silani@univie.ac.at Phone: +43-1-4277-47223 Curriculum Vitae Scientific interests: in the past 10 years I have been working on the neural foundations of social cognition and social emotions, especially empathy and prosocial behaviors. The focus of my research is both in the normal developing and clinical population (especially autism and alexithymia). I recently expanded my interests to the investigation of the neurobiological mechanisms behind social reward. ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giorgia_Silani |
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EMILIO CHIAPPINI
Position: Post doc email: emilio.chiappini@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: My resMy research interests revolve around many topic of cognitive neuroscience, including social perception and reward. In my early career I mastered the use of TMS to induce and measure plastic changes within and between the visual and the motor systems in order to investigate the relationship between neural connectivity and behaviour. Currently my strand of research investigates altered mechanisms of reward, especially social reward, in individuals in the autism spectrum by taking advantage of functional MRI. |
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ANA STIJOVIC
Position: PhD student email: ana.stijovic@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: I am interested in how our motivation to engage in affiliative behaviors interacts with more basic survival systems of the organism, such as energy regulation. My current research is on the effects of social and metabolic stress on social and non-social reward processing. |
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KATHARINA STIEHL
Position: PhD student email: Katharina.Stiehl@kl.ac.at Scientific interests: I am interested in how stereotypical perception of sexualisation influence social behaviour during early adolescence. My current research focuses on how early adolescence see themselves and others in different developmental stages and how this influences their stereotypical perception and social behaviour. |
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MELANIE MICHNA
Position: PhD student email: melanie.michna@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: My research interest is about sexual objectification of men and women and the proximate cognitive and neural mechanisms of it. Moreover, I am interested in how it relates to empathy and (pro)social behaviour. |
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RAIMUND BÜHLER
Position: PhD student email: raimund.buehler@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: My research focuses on the neural basis of social attention and social motivation in autism spectrum disorder, specifically the importance of the interaction between the opiod- and the oxytocin-system in modulating these processes. For this, I will be using interactive eye tracking and computational reinforcement learning models. I also have previously gathered some experience in topics related to primary and social reward processing using EMG and fMRI. |
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ALEXANDER GRÖSSING
Position: PhD student email: alexander.groessing@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: I'm interested in neuronal plasticity and how functional and structural changes in the brain influence our behavior. Currently I'm investigating the effects of music therapy on the brain, using functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging. I'm also interested in the neuronal underpinnings of psychopathy and criminal behavior and possible implications for law enforcement. |
Visiting Scientists
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JAKUB KRAUS
Position: visiting post-doc Email: jakub.kraus@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: My research has in general been focused on brain mechanisms underlying emotional and motivational behaviors and their connection to the social aspect of human lives. Specifically, in past I was focused on neural areas and circuits (fMRI) involved in anxiety and human sadness processes, their possible attenuation mechanisms with looking for possible linkages to psychiatric disorders. Currently, my plan is to investigate the neurophysiology and neurochemistry of social reward processing using pharmacological manipulation and fMRI. |
Alumni
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CLAUDIA MASSACCESI
Former PhD student email: claudia.massaccesi@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: My research interests are in the area of social behavior, social cognition and social emotions. I worked on empathy and vicarious emotions, in particular pain. I am currently working on the neurochemical and neurocognitive basis of primary and social reward. |
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JULIAN TILLMANN
Former vising post doc student Email: julian.tillmann@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: My research focuses on understanding the variability in clinical symptoms and adaptive behaviour in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder at different ages and levels of cognitive ability. I am currently investigating how these clinical manifestations relate to potential biomarkers that can be used to stratify patient groups into more homogenous subgroups to inform and predict clinical outcome. |
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SEBASTIAN KORB Former post doc student (2016-2019) Position: Lecturer at the Department of Psychology of the University of Essex email: sebastian.korb@essex.ac.uk Scientific interests: I am particularly interested in understanding how proprioceptive information about our own body (e.g. facial feedback) is generated and how it contributes to processing, recognition, and awareness of emotions in others (e.g. facial expressions). |
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FEDERICA RIVA
Former Post doc student (2011-2012) Position: Post doc student at the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit (SCAN-Unit), Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods , Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna email: federica.riva@univie.ac.at Scientific interests: I´m working on the neuro-developmental aspects of socio-cognitive functions, such as empathy and emotional egocentricity bias |
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MARCO ZANON
Former Post doc student (2010-2013) Current position: Post doc student at the Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, University of Bologna, Italy email: marco.zanon2@unibo.it webpage: http://www.cnc.psice.unibo.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84%3Amarco-zanon&catid=11%3Aricercatori-post-doc-&Itemid=25&lang=it&jjj=1453901043642&jjj=1454330517654 ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marco_Zanon2 |
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GIOVANNI NOVEMBRE
Former PhD student (2010-2014) Current position: Post doc student at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKE) / Division of Neuro and Inflammation Sciences (NIV) / Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience (CSAN), Linköping University, Sweden webpage: http://www.liu.se/personal/ike/niv/csan/giono78?l=en ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giovanni_Novembre Giovanni obtained his PhD in the lab in January 2015. His work was on neural substrates of empathic responses to different kinds of pain, in both normal conditions and manipulated expectation of pain, and on neural substrates of costly altruistic behavior. His current research is on how social touch modulates emotion and behavior. |
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INDRAJEET PATIL
Former PhD student (2011-2015) Current Position: Postdoc at Max Planck Institute for Human Development email: patilindrajeet.science@gmail.com Curriculum Vitae Scientific interests: My primary interest lies in moral judgment and decision making and the role of various sociocognitive and socioaffective abilities (e.g., empathy, theory of mind, emotion regulation, etc.) in making such judgments. In addition to studying moral cognition in healthy individuals using neuroscientific methods (fMRI, psychophysiology, etc.), I also study clinical populations and sub-clinical personality traits (autism, alexithymia, psychopathy, multiple sclerosis, etc.) to investigate current models of moral cognition. Personal webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/indrajeetspatilmorality/ ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Indrajeet_Patil2 Academia profile: https://sissa.academia.edu/IndrajeetPatil |
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CARLOTTA COGONI
Former PhD student (2012-2016) email: ccogoni@sissa.it Scientific interests: I´m currently working on the role of person-objectification on low level (visual perception) and high level (empathy , theory of mind) cognitive functions, and how this is processed on a brain level. |