2014/15 Series: The Body, the Brain, Symbolic Expression and Its Experience: An Experimental Aesthetics Perspective

Vittorio Gallese, MD and trained neurologist, is Professor of Physiology at the Dept. of Neuroscience of the University of Parma, Italy, and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar, Dept. of Art History and Archeology, Columbia University, New York, USA. A cognitive neuroscientist, his research focuses on the relationship between the sensory-motor system and cognition by investigating the neurobiological basis of intersubjectivity, empathy, language and aesthetics. He also applies neuroscientific methods to study of trauma and schizophrenia. His major scientific contribution consisted of the discovery of mirror neurons, together with his colleagues of Parma, and of the development of Embodied Simulation Theory. He is the author of more than 200 scientific publications and two books. He received the Grawemeyer Award for Psychology in 2007.