Alexandra Battaglia Mayer 

 

 

 

EDUCATION

Nov. 1995 - Oct. 1999

Ph.D in Neurophysiology at the University of Rome "la Sapienza". 
Supervisor: Prof. Roberto Caminiti.

Nov. 1991

Laurea degree in Mathematics at the University of Rome "la Sapienza".

Jan. 1988 - Jul. 1988

visiting student at Nuclear and Astrophysics Laboratory (ERASMUS) at the University of Oxford.

Jul. 1983

Maturita' Classica (Humanities), Liceo-Ginnasio "E.Q. Visconti", Rome.

 

ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT

Jan 2005 - today

Associate Professor of Physiology at the Department of Human Physiology and Pharmacology of University of Rome "la Sapienza". 

Jan 2001 - Dec 2004

Research Assistant at the Department of Human Physiology and Pharmacology of University of Rome "la Sapienza". 

Jan. 2000 - Dec. 2000

Research Felloship at I.R.C.C.S. S. Lucia (Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care, Rome, Italy) working on computational approach to study arm directional movements.

Jan. 1998 - Dec. 1999

Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN, USA), working at the Brain Sciences Center (Minneapolis, MN, USA) .
Supervisor: Prof. A. P. Georgopoulos.

Nov. 1995 - Oct. 1999

Fellow in the official postdoctoral course ("Dottorato di ricerca") in Neurophysiology (duration: 4 years) at the University of Rome "la Sapienza". 
Supervisor: Dr. Roberto Caminiti.

 

SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIONS

1992-1994

Collaboration with Prof. Occhionero of the Astronomical Observatory in Rome (Italy).

1993

Collaboration with J.H. Schmidt of the Mathematical Institute of University of Potsdam (Germany).

1995 to present

Collaboration with the group supervised by Prof. R. Caminiti at the Istituto di Fisiologia Umana of the University of Rome "la Sapienza" (Italy) and with Y. Burnod of the INSERM-CREARE in Paris (France).

1998 - 2004

Collaboration with the group supervised by Prof. A.P.Georgopoulos at the Brain Sciences Center (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA).

 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Cerebral cortex neurophysiology: Neural correlates of visual control of arm movement. 
  • Anatomical substrates of cortical functions.
  • Modelling, through artificial neural networks, cortical processes underlying the composition of motor commands.

 

TEACHING ACTIVITY

  • 2002-present Physiology at the University of Rome "la Sapienza"
  • Official Course of School of Medicine
  • School of Pharmacology
  • School of Psychiatry
  • School of Aerospace Medicine 

 

MEMBERSHIPS

  • Society of Neuroscience
  • Societą Italiana di Neuroscienze

 

PUBBLICAZIONI SCIENTIFICHE


A) Pubblicazioni relative all'attivita' di ricerca svolta tra 1992-1993:

1.       Amendola, L. , Battaglia-Mayer, A. , Capozziello, S. , Gottlober, S. , Muller, V. , Occhionero, F., Schmidt, H.-J.,"Generalized sixth-order gravity and inflation", Class. Quantun Grav. 10, L1 (1993).

2.       Battaglia-Mayer, A., Schmidt, H.-J., "The deSitter space-time as attractor solution in eight order gravity", Class. Quantun Grav.10, 2441 (1993).


B) Pubblicazioni relative all'attivita' di ricerca svolta dal 1995 ad oggi:

1.       Johnson, P. B., Ferraina, S., Garasto, M. R., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ercolani, L., Burnod, Y., and Caminiti, R.. From vision to movement: cortico-cortical connections and combinatorial properties of reaching related neurons in parietal areas V6 and V6A; in: "Parietal Lobe Contributions to Orientation in 3D Space.", ( P. Thier and H.-O. Karnath eds.). Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. Exp. Brain Res. Suppl., 25, 221-236 (1997).

2.       Ferraina, S., Johnson, P. B., Garasto, M. R., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ercolani, L., Bianchi, L., Lacquaniti, F., and Caminiti, R. "Combination of hand and gaze signals during reaching : activity in parietal area 7m of the monkey", J. Neurophysiol., 77, 1034-1038 (1997).

3.       Ferraina, S., Garasto, M. R., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ferraresi, P., Johnson, P. B., Lacquaniti, F., and Caminiti, R. "Visual Control of Hand-reaching Movement: Activity in Parietal Area 7m", Eur. J. Neurosci., 9, 1090-1095, (1997).

4.       Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ferraina, S., Marconi, B., Bullis, J., Lacquaniti, F., Burnod, Y., Baraduc, P., Caminiti, R.,"Early motor influences on visuomotor transformations for reaching: a positive image of optic ataxia", Exp. Brain Res. , 123, 172-189 (1998).

5.       Caminiti, R., Ferraina, S., Battaglia-Mayer, A., "Visuomotor transformations: early cortical mechanisms of reaching", Curr Op Neurobiol, 8, 753-761 (1998).

6.       Caminiti, R., Genovesio, A., Marconi, B., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Onorati, P., Ferraina, S. , Mitsuda, T., Gianetti, S., Squatrito, S., Maioli, M.G., Molinari, M. "Early coding of reaching: frontal and parietal association connections of parieto-occipital cortex", Eur. J. Neurosci., 11, (9), 3339- 3345 (1999).

7.       Burnod, Y., Baraduc, P., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Guigon, E., Koechlin, E., Ferraina, S., Lacquaniti, F., Caminiti, R. "Parieto-frontal coding of reaching : an integrated framework", Exp. Brain Res., 129:325-346 (1999).

8.       Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ferraina, S., Mitsuda, T., Marconi, B., Genovesio, A., Onorati, P., Lacquaniti, F., Caminiti, R. "Early coding of reaching in the parieto-occipital cortex", J. Neurophysiol., 83(4):2374-2391 (2000).

9.       Ferraina, S., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Genovesio, A., Marconi, B., Onorati, P., Caminiti, R. "Early coding of visuomanual coordination during reaching in parietal area PEc", J. Neurophysiol., 85: 462-465 (2001).

10.    Squatrito, S., Raffi, M., Maioli, M.G., Battaglia-Mayer, A. "Visual motion responses of neurons in the caudal area PE of macaque monkey", J. Neurosci., 21: RC130(1-5) (2001).

11.    Marconi, B., Genovesio, A., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ferraina, S., Squatrito, S., Molinari, M., Lacquaniti, F., Caminiti, R. "Eye-hand coordination during reaching. I. Anatomical relationships between parietal and frontal cortex ", Cereb. Cortex, 11: 513-527 (2001).

12.    Battaglia-Mayer, A., Ferraina, S., Genovesio, A., Marconi, B., Squatrito, Francesco Lacquaniti, Caminiti, R. "Eye-hand coordination during reaching. II. An analysis of the relationhisps between visuomanual signals in parietal cortex and parieto-frontal association projections", Cereb. Cortex, 11: 528-544 (2001).

13.    Merchant, H., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Georgopoulos, A.P. "Effects of optic flow oin Motor Cortex and area 7a", J. Neurophysiol., 86 (4) : 1937-1954 (2001).

14.    Battaglia-Mayer, A., Caminiti, R. "Optic ataxia as result of the breakdown of the global tuning fields of parietal neurons", Brain, 125, 225-237, 2002.

15.    Mascaro, M., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Nasi, L., Amit, D., Caminiti, R. The eye and the hand: neural mechanisms and network models for oculomanual coordination in parietal cortex", Cereb. Cortex, 13:1276-1286 (2003).

16.    Merchant, H., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Georgopoulos, A.P. Interception of real and apparent motion targets: psychophysics in humans and monkeys, Exp. Brain Res., 152(1) :106-112 (2003).

17.    Battaglia-Mayer, A., Caminiti, R., Lacquaniti, F., Zago, M. Multiple levels of representation of reaching in the parieto-frontal network, Cereb. Cortex, 13: 1009-1022 (2003).

18.    Merchant, H., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Georgopoulos, A.P. Functional organization of parietal neuronal responses to optic flow stimuli, J. Neurophysiol., 90: 675-682 (2003).

19.    Merchant, H., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Georgopoulos, A.P. Neural responses in motor cortex and area 7a to real and apparent motion, Exp. Brain Res., 154: 291-307 (2004).

20.    Merchant, H., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Georgopoulos, A.P. Neural responses during interception of real and apparent circularly moving targets in Motor Cortex and Area 7a, Cereb. Cortex, 14: 314-331 (2004).

21.    Battaglia-Mayer, A., Mascaro, M., Brunamonti, E., Caminiti, R. The Over-representation of Contralateral Space in Parietal Cortex: A Positive Image of Directional Motor Components of Neglect?, Cereb. Cortex, 15: 514-525 (2005).

22.    Merchant, H., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Georgopoulos, A.P. Decoding of Path-Guided Apparent Motion from Neural Ensembles in Posterior Parietal Cortex, Exp. Brain Res., 161 (4) : 532 - 540 (2005).

23.    Caminiti, R., Ferraina, S., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Mascaro, M., Burnod Y. Parallel parietofrontal circuits for sensorimotor transformation. In:Higher Order Motor Disorders: From Neuroanatomy and Neurobiology to Clinical Neurology. M Jeannerod , M Hallet, HJ Freund, R Leiguarda (Eds), Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford (2005).

24.    Caminiti, R., Battaglia-Mayer, A., Gallese, V. «Controllo corticale del movimento». In : Fisiologia Medica, a cura di Conti F., Edi.Ermes, Milano, Italy (2005).

25.    Battaglia-Mayer, A., Archambault P, Caminiti, R. The cortical network for eye-hand coordination and its relevance to understanding motor disorders of parietal patients, Neuropsychologia, 44: 2607-2620 (2006).

26.    Battaglia-Mayer A, Mascaro M, Caminiti, R. (2007) Temporal evolution and strength of neural activity in parietal cortex during eye and hand movements. Cereb. Cortex, 17: 1350 - 1363.

27.    Acimovic J, Battaglia-Mayer A, Caminiti R, Hasler M. Automatic methods for motor intention recognition from spike rates. Proceedings of 2007 International Symposium on Nonlinear Theory and its Application (NOLTA). Vancouver, Canada. September 16-19., pages 361-364, 2007.

28.    Ferraina  S, Battaglia-Mayer  A, Genovesio A, Archambault  P, Caminiti  R. (2009). “Parietal encoding of action in depth”, Neuropsychologia, 47:1409-1420.

29.    Archambault P, Caminiti  R, Battaglia-Mayer  A (2009) “Cortical mechanisms for on-line control of hand movement trajectory. The role of the posterior parietal cortex  », Cereb Cortex, 19(12): 2848-2864 .

30.    Averbeck B, Battaglia-Mayer A, Guglielmo MC, Caminiti R (2009) “Statistical analysis of parieto-frontal cognitive motor networks”, J Neurophysiol 102: 1911–1920.

31.    Caminiti R, Chafee MV, Battaglia-Mayer A, Averbeck B, Crowe D, Georgopoulos (2010) “Understanding the parietal lobe syndrome from a neurophysiological and evolutionary perspective”, Eur J Neurosci, 31: 2320-2340.

32.    Archambault P, Ferrari-Toniolo S, Battaglia-Mayer  A (2011) “Online Control of Hand Trajectory and Evolution of Motor Intention in the Parietofrontal System”, J Neurosci, 31(2):742–752.

 

 


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