Federico de Martino (F.)
Research profile
I use Machine Learning and Statistical approaches to link formal/mathematical descriptions of mesopic population activity to brain activity measured with (Ultra High field) fMRI. By doing so I aim at testing hypotheses about the algorithms performed in mesoscopic neural populations in both the cortex (layers and columns) and subdivision of subocrtical structure.
I focus primarily on auditory perception and in particular on how contextual informaiton allows our brain to make predictions of what we wil hear next.
While I focus on auditory perception, my collaborative work has allowed me to use similar approaches to investigate other sensory systems.
Finally, to investigate mesoscopic computations, I use Ultra High Field functional Magnetic Resonance imaging. In collaboraiton with researchers at the Center for Magnetic Resoance Research in Minneapolis, I develop approaches to improve high spatial resolution functional imaging and to further our understanding of the mesoscipic signals acquired with fMRI.
My international collaborators include:
Prof. Rainer Goebel, Prof. Elia Formisano, Prof. David Linden and Prof. Sonja Kotz at Maastricht University (NL). Dr. Essa Yacoub and Dr. Pierre-Francois van de Moortele at the CMRR (USA). Prof. Lars Muckli at the University of Glasgow (UK). Prof. Kamil Uludag at the University of Toronto (Canada). Dr. Lucia Melloni at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt (Germany). Prof. Floris de Lange at the Donders Institute in Nijmegen (NL).
Research projects
NWO - VIDI grant: Mapping the circuitry of the human auditory pathway at the sub-millimetre level.
NIH Brian Initiative grant: in collaboration with CMRR and the New York University. Neural and Vascular underpinnings of laminar fMRI in humans.
ERC Conslidator grant: PrAud: mesoscopic computational imaging of the predictive listening human brain.