About me
I am interested in neuropsychology and specifically in speech production deficits in bilingual speakers with brain damage (neurodegeneration and after stroke). Also, my research includes the investigation of the underlying mechanisms of bilingualism as a cognitive reserve factor in age-related diseases. Recently, I started a new line of research that aims at investigating the role of background music in learning and memory in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (MEM-COG Project).
I am currently at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona) as a professor of the Master’s in Neuropsychology. Previously, I was a researcher at the Center for Brain and Cognition at Pompeu Fabra University.
Past experience
In 2002, as an undergraduate of psychology at the University of Padua (Italy), I started my first research experience at the EEG Laboratory of the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium. At that time, I investigated the neurophysiological components of visual face processing. After that, my second research experience abroad was in France at the INSERM (Lyon) where I was investigating the relationship between number, time, and space representations.
In September 2003 I joined the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory in Brescia (Italy). I worked as a clinical neuropsychologist and I collaborated on projects that investigated language deficits in patients with Fronto-temporal dementia and the use of TMS as a rehabilitation tool for patients with brain damage.
From 2006 to 2009, I did my Ph.D. in Psychobiology at the University of Padua (Italy) on the aging effects on semantic and episodic memory. At the same time, I was also collaborating with the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab on projects about neurodegenerative diseases, cognition, and language.
In 2009, I joined the Speech Production and Bilingualism (SPB) group at the Center for Brain and Cognition (Pompeu Fabra University). From 2009 on my research interests are focused on the study of language, memory, and non-linguistic processes in brain-damaged individuals with a special emphasis on bilingual speakers. In 2010 I was awarded with a post-doctoral fellowship from the Spanish Government (‘Juan de la Cierva’) and in 2014 with the prestigious ‘Ramón y Cajal’ fellowship.
Since December 2019, I am an Associate Professor of the Master in Neuropsychology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
Contact: mcalabria[at]uoc.edu
