Dr. Alessandro Gozzi

Guest speaker: Dr. Alessandro Gozzi – senior researcher Functional Neuro-imaging at Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

Towards a mechanistic decoding of functional (dys)connectivity

Human brain disorders are characterized by dysfunctional communication among brain regions, yet the biological mechanisms underlying this “functional dysconnectivity” remain unclear. In my talk, I will highlight recent cross-species research using fMRI to decode patterns of brain disconnectivity into their molecular and neurophysiological underpinnings. In particular, I will illustrate how targeted neural perturbations can reveal fundamental physiological principles governing large-scale functional connectivity, and how these principles may be disrupted in developmental disorders like autism. By bridging findings across species and investigational scales, this emerging approach offers new avenues for modeling and decoding functional connectivity in both healthy and pathological states.