Jump to content

Carlo Semenza (neuroscientist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carlo Semenza
Carlo Semenza, Neuropsychologist and Cognitive Neuroscientist
Born(1949-10-01)October 1, 1949
CitizenshipItalian
EducationUniversity of Padua
Occupationneuropsychologist & cognitive neuroscientist

Carlo Semenza (born October 1, 1949) is an Italian neuropsychologist and cognitive neuroscientist. Carlo Semenza’s research activity mostly contributed to the field of aphasiology, neuropsychology of language, and numerical cognition.[1]

Career

[edit]

Semenza graduated in medicine at the University of Padua in 1974, and in the same university he obtained his specialization in psychiatry (1978).[2] During his specialization he focused in the growing field of neuropsychology, and in the study on how brain damage could have specific effects on cognition. His interest in neuropsychology flourished during the time spent as a research fellow at the Boston VA Hospital between late 70s and beginning of 80s. During that time interval, he attended some of the seminars by Jerry Fodor, and his view of a modular mind strongly influenced his future work. Semenza’s work initially spanned from spatial cognition to aphasia,[3][4][5] but soon started to focus on specific aspects of language processing as proper name anomia.[6][7] In his seminal work of 1989[8] he reported one of the first cases of a patient whose use of common nouns was unimpaired, but selectively could not remember proper names, suggesting that proper nouns have a specific representation in the brain, distinct from the representation of common nouns.[9] His later studies encompass other aspects of language, including semantics and morphology, as well as calculation impairments in patients with neurological diseases. Between the 90s and the first years of 2000s he focused on the study of language and especially on morphology, conducting several studies on the processing of mass and count nouns,[10] and compound words in patients with aphasia[11] or other neurological diseases.[12] Since 2010, his work focused on numerical cognition in neuropsychological conditions. He published several studies underlining the need of better characterising the role of right-hemisphere in numerical processing.[13] [14] and promoted the importance of taking into account the impact of numerical abilities in the activities of daily living in neurological patients [15][16]

Positions

[edit]
  • 2008 - 2020. Full professor of Neuropsychology, School of Medicine, University of Padua, Italy
  • 2003 - 2005 Head of PhD program in Psychology, University of Trieste, Italy
  • 1998 - 2000, 2003 - 2005 Head of the Clinical Psychology School, University of Trieste
  • 1997 - 2000 Head of the Department of Psychology, University of Trieste, Italy
  • 1995 - 2008 Full Professor of Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Trieste, Italy
  • 1979 - 1995 Associate Professor of Physiological Psychology, Psychology Faculty, University of Padua, Italy
  • 1974 - 1990 Lecturer in Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology, Speech Therapy School, University of Padua, Italy

Scientific Advisory Activity

[edit]
  • I.R.C.C.S. Ospedale S.Camillo, Venice Lido, Italy
  • Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Verbania, Italy
  • Medical Research Council of Canada (site visit to Centre de Gériatrie, Cotes des Neiges, Montreal)
  • Boston VA Hospital (Research Fellow)

Affiliations

[edit]

Carlo Semenza is now affiliated to several international and national societies, such as the International Neuropsychology Symposium, Academy of Aphasia (member Board of Governors), World Federation of Neurology, and the Società Italiana Neuropsicologia. Since 2020 he is a member of the Academia Europaea.[17] Carlo Semenza is also a cofounder of the European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology[18]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Semenza, Carlo (22 November 2017). "University Web Page". Padova Neuroscience Center. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  2. ^ "Carlo Semenza CV". Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  3. ^ Bisiacchi, Patrizia; Denes, Franco; Semenza, Carlo (1976). "Semantic field in aphasia: an experimental investigation on comprehension of the relations of class and property". Schweiz. Arch. Neurol. Neurochir. Psychiatr. 118 (2): 207–13. PMID 948732.
  4. ^ Semenza, Carlo; Denes, Franco; Lucchese, Dario; Bisiacchi, Patrizia (1980). "Selective deficit of conceptual structures in aphasia: Class versus thematic relations". Brain & Language. 10 (2): 243–8. doi:10.1016/0093-934X(80)90054-1. PMID 7407545. S2CID 26709516.
  5. ^ Denes, Franco; Semenza, Carlo; Stoppa, Edoardo; Lis, Elisabetta (1980). "Unilateral spatial neglect and recovery from hemiplegia: a follow-up study". Brain. 105 (3): 534-552.
  6. ^ Gorno Tempini, M. L.; Price, C. L. (2001). "Identification of famous faces and buildings: a functional neuroimaging study of semantically unique items". Brain. 124 (10): 2087–97. doi:10.1093/brain/124.10.2087. PMID 11571224.
  7. ^ Semenza, Carlo (1995). "Generating proper names: A case of selective inability". Cognitive Neuropsychology. 5 (6): 711-721. doi:10.1080/02643298808253279.
  8. ^ Semenza, Carlo; Zettin, Marina (1989). "Evidence from aphasia for the role of proper names as pure referring expressions". Nature. 342 (6250): 678–9. Bibcode:1989Natur.342..678S. doi:10.1038/342678a0. PMID 2480523. S2CID 4229053.
  9. ^ Caramazza, Alfonso; Hillis, Argye (1991). ""Lexical organization of nouns and verbs in the brain". Nature. 349 (6312): 788–790. Bibcode:1991Natur.349..788C. doi:10.1038/349788a0. PMID 2000148. S2CID 4279046.
  10. ^ Semenza, Carlo; Mondini, Sara; Cappelletti, Marinella (1997). "The grammatical properties of mass nouns: An aphasia case study". Neuropsychologia. 355 (5): 669–75. doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(96)00124-8. PMID 9153029. S2CID 43919385.
  11. ^ Mondini, Sara; Jarema, Gonia; Luzzatti, Claudio; Burani, Cristina; Semenza, Carlo (2002). "Why is 'Red Cross' different from 'Yellow Cross'?: a neuropsychological study of noun-adjective agreement within Italian compounds". Brain and Language. 81 (1–3): 621–34. doi:10.1006/brln.2001.2552. PMID 12081427. S2CID 12022463.
  12. ^ Semenza, Carlo; et, al. (2011). "Reading compounds in neglect dyslexia: the headedness effect". Neuropsychologia. 49 (11): 3116–20. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.07.020. PMID 21810435. S2CID 159504.
  13. ^ Semenza, Carlo; Benavides-Varela, Silvia (2017). "Reassessing lateralization in calculation". Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 373 (1740): 1-10. doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0044. PMC 5784048. PMID 29292349.
  14. ^ Karolis, Vyacheslav R.; Corbetta, Maurizio; Thiebaut de Schotten, Michel (2019). "The architecture of functional lateralisation and its relationship to callosal connectivity in the human brain". Nature Communications. 10 (1): 1-9. Bibcode:2019NatCo..10.1417K. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09344-1. PMC 6441088. PMID 30926845.
  15. ^ Arcara, Giorgio; Burgio, Francesca; Benavides-Varela, Silvia; Toffano, Roberta; Gindri, Patrizia; Tonini, Elisabetta; Meneghello, Francesca; Semenza, Carlo. "Numerical Activities of Daily Living – Financial (NADL-F): A tool for the assessment of financial capacities". Neuropsychological Rehabilitation: 1-23.
  16. ^ Semenza, Carlo; et, al. (2014). "A new clinical tool for assessing numerical abilities in neurological diseases: numerical activities of daily living". Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. 6: 112. doi:10.3389/fnagi.2014.00112. PMC 4115360. PMID 25126077.
  17. ^ "Carlo Semenza". Academia Europaea. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  18. ^ "European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology". European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology. Retrieved 27 September 2020.