Valeria Gazzola (born 19 January 1977) is an Italian

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

, associate professor at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

(UvA) and member of the Young Academy of Europe. She is also a tenured department head at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, where she leads her own research group and the Social Brain Lab together with

Christian Keysers Christian Keysers is a French and German neuroscientist. Education and career He finished his school education at the European School, Munich and studied psychology and biology at the University of Konstanz, the Ruhr University Bochum, Univer ...

. She is a specialist in the neural basis of

empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...

and

embodied cognition Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of an organism's entire body. Sensory and motor systems are seen as fundamentally integrated with cognitive processing. The cognit ...

: Her research focusses on how the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

makes individuals sensitive to the actions and emotions of others and how this affects

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

Early life and education

Gazzola completed her

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

at the

University of Parma The University of Parma ( it, Università degli Studi di Parma, UNIPR) is a public university in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is organised in nine departments. As of 2016 the University of Parma has about 26,000 students. History During the ...

in Italy. Interested in science, she started studying physics, but realized after one year that she was even more interested in biology. She continued at the

for her

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree in 2003. Her experimental thesis in the Rizzolatti Laboratory under the supervision of

Vittorio Gallese Vittorio Gallese is professor of Psychobiology at the University of Parma, Italy, and was professor in Experimental Aesthetics at the University of London, UK (2016-2018). He is an expert in neurophysiology, cognitive neuroscience, social neurosc ...

entitled “The role of the somatosensory cortices during the observation of the tactile stimulation of others” contributed to a publication in Neuron.

Career and research

In early work, financed through a VENI grant from the

Dutch Research Council The Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) is the national research council of the Netherlands. NWO funds thousands of top researchers at universities and institutes and steers the course o ...

(NWO), Gazzola established for the first time that somatosensory cortices, known to process tactile and proprioceptive information in the self, also play a necessary role in processing the actions and sensations of others. Using

neuroimaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incre ...

, she established that somatosensory regions are activated while witnessing the actions and sensations of others. She then used neuromodulatory tools to establish that these somatosensory cortices are necessary for the perception of the actions and pain of others. She then looked at incarcerated psychopathic criminals to show that people with increased antisocial behavior showed reduced activations in these regions while witnessing the pain of others, but could show that if asked to empathize, their activity normalizes, leading her to propose a mechanism that explains how the ability to empathize differs from the propensity to do so. In later work, financed by an Innovational Research Incentives Scheme (VIDI) grant from the

, Gazzola addressed how these systems influence behavior. She used electroencephalography (EEG) to show that activity in somatosensory cortices can predict how much a person will do to help others, and used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to show that altering that activity alters how much they do for others. She then also developed an animal model of helping, and showed that

cingulate Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. Dasypodids and chlamyphorids, the armadillos, are the only surviving families in the order. Two groups of cingulates much larger than extant arm ...

activity, involved in an animal's own pain as well as activated by the pain of others, is necessary for the animal's sensitivity to the pain of others and influences the animals willingness to help others. In parallel, she also brought our understanding of how we perceive the actions of others to a new level by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), TMS and

cerebellar The cerebellum (Latin for "little brain") is a major feature of the hindbrain of all vertebrates. Although usually smaller than the cerebrum, in some animals such as the mormyrid fishes it may be as large as or even larger. In humans, the cereb ...

patients to show how

somatosensory In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch (haptic perception), as well as temperature (thermoception), body position (proprioception), and pain. It i ...

premotor The premotor cortex is an area of the motor cortex lying within the frontal lobe of the brain just anterior to the primary motor cortex. It occupies part of Brodmann's area 6. It has been studied mainly in primates, including monkeys and humans. ...

and

regions work together to transform the

kinematics Kinematics is a subfield of physics, developed in classical mechanics, that describes the Motion (physics), motion of points, Physical object, bodies (objects), and systems of bodies (groups of objects) without considering the forces that cause ...

of observed actions into a perception of effort. In her current work, financed by a European Research Council (ERC) grant, Gazzola investigates the question of whether and how, the insula and

contribute to our decisions to help others if doing so is costly. For this project, she co-founded the Centre for Ultrasound Brain imaging (CUBE) together with groups from the Erasmus Medical Center and

Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

funded by the

Publications

Her most cited articles are: *Keysers C, Wicker B, Gazzola V, Anton JL, Fogassi L, Gallese V. A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch. Neuron. 2004 Apr 22;42(2):335-46 (Cited 1141 times, according to

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Google Scholar Author page
Accessed Dec. 6, 2021 *Gazzola V, Aziz-Zadeh L, Keysers C. Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current biology. 2006 Sep 19;16(18):1824-9.(Cited 1142 times, according to Google Scholar.) * Keysers C, Kaas JH, Gazzola V. Somatosensation in social perception. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2010 Jun;11(6):417-28.(Cited 844 times, according to

) * Gazzola V, Rizzolatti G, Wicker B, Keysers C. The anthropomorphic brain: the mirror neuron system responds to human and robotic actions. Neuroimage. 2007 May 1;35(4):1674-84. (Cited 804 times, according to Google Scholar.) * Keysers C, Gazzola V. Integrating simulation and theory of mind: from self to social cognition. Trends in cognitive sciences. 2007 May 1;11(5):194-6 (Cited 609 times, according to Google Scholar.) * Keysers C, Gazzola V. Towards a unifying neural theory of social cognition. Progress in brain research. 2006 Jan 1;156:379-401.(Cited 511 times, according to Google Scholar.)

Honors

* Member of the Young Academy of Europe (2016)

References

{{Authority control Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam University of Parma alumni Italian women neuroscientists Italian neuroscientists Living people 1977 births