BIO

Alessandra Vergallito is a post-doc fellow in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology at the University of Milano-Bicocca. She got her Ph.D. in Psychology, Linguistics, and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Milano-Bicocca in 2018.

In her dissertation, she provided examples and discussion concerning the feasibility of using corticospinal excitability induced by TMS to explore action understanding and higher cognitive functions. Her main research interest concerns the investigation of whether and how non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) can help boost behavioral, therapeutic, and rehabilitation protocols in healthy and psychiatric populations. She developed several research lines concerning how NIBS modulates emotion regulation, cognitive performance, brain activity, and connectivity.

In 2019, she was awarded a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Foundation, titled “Boosting Psychotherapy effects by means of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation”, which aims at combining metacognitive therapy with transcranial direct current stimulation in major depression treatment.

Alessandra’s academic training and research experiences provided her an excellent background in the NIBS field. She integrated this expertise with advanced statistical courses and four-year training in cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, which is still in progress.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Vergallito, A., Gallucci, A., Pisoni, A., Punzi, M., Caselli, G., Ruggiero, G.M., Sassaroli, S., Romero Lauro, L.J. Non-invasive brain stimulation effectiveness in anxiety disorder treatment: a meta-analysis on sham/behavior-controlled studies. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience (in press).

Lakretz, Y., Hupkes, D., Vergallito, A., Marelli, M., Baroni, M., & Dehaene, S. (2021). Mechanisms for Handling Nested Dependencies in Neural-Network Language Models and Humans Cognition. Cognition, 104699.

Petilli, M. A., Günther, F., Vergallito, A., Ciapparelli, M., & Marelli, M. (2021). Data-driven computational models reveal perceptual simulation in word processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 117, 104194.

Günther, F., Petilli, M.A., Vergallito, A., & Marelli, M. Images of the unseen: extrapolating visual representations for abstract and concrete words in a data-driven computational model. Psychological Research (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01429-7

Romero Lauro, L.J.*, Vergallito, A.*, Anzani, S., Vallar, G. Primary motor cortex and phonological recoding: A TMS-EMG study. Neuropsychologia, 139, 107368.

Vergallito, A.,* Mattavelli, G.,* Lo Gerfo, E., Anzani, S., Rovagnati, V., Speciale, M., Vinai, P., Vinai, P, Vinai, L., Romero Lauro, L.J. Explicit and automatic responses of seeing self and others emotions: an electromyographic study on the neurophysiological basis of Self-Mirroring Technique. Research topic: Research Topic: Explicit and Implicit Emotion Processing: Neural Basis, Perceptual and Cognitive Mechanisms. In press Frontiers in Psychology.

Vergallito, A.,* Varoli, E.,* Giustolisi, B., Cecchetto, C., Del Mauro, L., Romero Lauro, L.J. Mind the stimulation site: enhancing and diminishing sentence comprehension with anodal tDCS. Special issue “Non-invasive neuromodulation and language”, Brain and Language, 204, 104757.

Vergallito, A., Petilli, M. A., & Marelli, M. (2019). Perceptual modality norms for 1,121 Italian words: A comparison with concreteness and imageability scores and an analysis of their impact in word processing tasks. Behavior Research Methods, 1-18.

Vergallito, A.,* Petilli, M. A.,* Cattaneo, L., & Marelli, M. (2019). Somatic and visceral effects of word valence, arousal, and concreteness in a continuum lexical space. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 1-10.

Vergallito, A., Gerfo, E. L., Varoli, E., Brambilla, M., Sacchi, S., Anzani, S., & Lauro, L. R. (2019). Positive self-perception and Corticospinal Excitability: Recalling Positive Behavior Expands Body Schema Boundaries. Neuropsychologia, 135, 107224.

Vergallito, A., Riva, P., Pisoni, A., Romero Lauro, L.J. (2018). Modulation of negative emotions through anodal tDCS over the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychologia, 119, 128-135.

Vergallito, A., Lauro, L. J. R., Bonandrini, R., Zapparoli, L., Danelli, L., & Berlingeri, M. (2018). What is difficult for you can be easy for me Effects of increasing individual task demand on prefrontal lateralization: a tDCS study. Neuropsychologia, 109, 283-294.

Giustolisi, B*., Vergallito, A*., Cecchetto, C., Varoli, E., & Lauro, L. J. R. (2018). Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the left inferior frontal gyrus enhances sentence comprehension. Brain and language, 176, 36-41.

Lo Gerfo, E., Gallucci, A., Morese, R., Vergallito, A., Ottone, S., Ponzano, F., Bosco, F., Locatelli, G., Romero Lauro, L.J (2019). The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction in third-party punishment behavior: a tDCS study. NeuroImage, 200, 501-510.

Lo Gerfo, E., De Angelis, J., Vergallito, A., Bossi, F., Romero Lauro, L. J., & Ricciardelli, P. (2018). Can monetary reward modulate social attention?. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2213.

Pisoni, A.*, Romero Lauro, L.J.*, Vergallito, A., Maddaluno, O., Bolognini, N. (2018). Cortical dynamics underpinning the self-other distinction of touch: A TMS-EEG study. NeuroImage, 178, 475-484.

Lo Gerfo, E., Pisoni, A., Ottone, S.,  Ponzano, F.,  Zarri, L., Vergallito, A., Fedeli, D., Romero Lauro, L.J. (2018). Goal Achievement Failure Drives Corticospinal Modulation in Promotion and Prevention Contexts. Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience, 12, 71.

Varoli, E., Pisoni, A., Mattavelli, G. C., Vergallito, A., Gallucci, A., Rosanova, M. D., … & Romero Lauro, L. (2018). Tracking the effect of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation on cortical excitability and connectivity by means of TMS-EEG. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 319.

Riva, P., Romero Lauro, L. J., Vergallito, A., DeWall, C. N., & Bushman, B. J. (2015). Electrified emotions: Modulatory effects of transcranial direct stimulation on negative emotional reactions to social exclusion. Social Neuroscience, 10(1), 46-54.

Pisoni, A., Gerfo, E. L., Ottone, S., Ponzano, F., Zarri, L., Vergallito, A., & Lauro, L. J. R. (2014). Fair play doesn’t matter: MEP modulation as a neurophysiological signature of status quo bias in economic interactions. NeuroImage, 101, 150-158.