Hi, welcome to my personal home page. I am a faculty member of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study and of the Psychology Department. This page describes my scientific activity and links to some of the sites related to my professional interests. If you want to know more about (the unofficial) me, visit my
I
am the head of the Computational Neuroanatomy
Group at the Krasnow Institute. Our main effort is to model
dendritic morphology (the "shape" of brain cells) and its influence on
neuronal electrophysiology. One of the products of our group is L-Neuron, a
modeling tool that generates and describes realistic neurons. Among the
current research
projects of the Computational Neuroanatomy Group are anatomically
plausible neural networks and Alzheimer's Disease. Here is a
Mason Gazette coverage of my research. For a detailed description
of this
field, see this review article. A new scientific book is coming out to define
Computational Neuroanatomy in broad terms.
My main long-term scientific and philosophical goal consists in establishing a working model for the highest cognitive functions such as human consciosuness. My current consciousness model is fundamentally based on associative learning. If you want to download the zipped poscript version of one of my papers on the subject, click here. If you think that consciousness is and will forever remain a mystery that science cannot solve, see my response. Finally, if you wonder what neuroanatomy has to do with consciousness, you might find an answer here.
On the experimental side, my research involvement is in neurochemistry and neuroanatomy. As a Guest Researcher at the former Laboratory of Adaptive Systems of the N.I.H., I worked on the structural characterization of a learning-associated neuronal protein, Calexcitin, and on the Prion protein, the infective agent of Mad Cow disease. In fact, my scientific background is biochemistry. I received my M.Sc. (Laurea) from the University of Pisa (yes, the leaning tower) and my Ph.D. from the Scuola Normale Superiore, in Italy, where I investigated drug-protein binding.
If you are interested in my research, you can find my CV with a list of publications here.
I am an associate professor in
the Department of Psychology of George Mason University. I enjoy
teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses and I welcome
Psychology, Computer Science and Informatics, and Biology students
interested in computational neuroanatomy to attend my classes. All
students in the greater Washington DC area who wish to visit my Krasnow
laboratory are strongly encouraged to contact
me (thesis slots available!).
Past courses:
In addition to my research and education interests, I am also involved
in the organization of services for neuroscientists. As the past
president of
the Potomac Chapter of the Society for
Neuroscience, I am particularly attentive to all the activities
related to neuroscience that are organized in the Capital area.
Recently, for the third year in row, our Chapter was awarded the Grass
Traveling Scientist Fellowship (see
details). I recently chaired a mini-symposium
in Computational Neuroanatomy within the large FASEB's Experimental Biology Meeting
in San Diego, CA.
Some of my
favorite scientific links:
...more
non-scientific links on my
Do you want to send me an email? Do
it! 
