Dr. Daniela Perani
Daniela Perani, MD is a Neurologist and Radiologist and Full Professor of Neuroscience at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Italy. She is the Director of the School of Specialization in Neuropsychology in the same university and Chief Coordinator of Nuclear Medicine Neurology, in the Nuclear Medicine Unit, at IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele.
She is Head of the Unit in the Division of Neuroscience of IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele and Coordinator of several National and International Research Projects in Neurology and Neuroscience. The Unit has several research activities in structural (MRI), functional (fMRI), and molecular (PET) neuroimaging aimed at investigating biological processes in neurodegenerative diseases and the cognitive functions and their modifications in neurological conditions. The Unit is part of multicentric European Projects and belongs to Networks of Excellence.
Her research deals with in vivo neuroimaging studies of neurological disease, particularly neurodegenerative dementias, and with cognitive neuroscience, addressing the neural correlates of language, memory systems, and music perception.
Read Male sex accelerates cognitive decline in GBA1 Parkinson’s disease, Amyloid and neurodegeneration: Converging and diverging paths, Brain Metabolism and Amyloid Load in Individuals With Subjective Cognitive Decline or Pre-Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Risk factors of dementia in a cohort of individuals with mild cognitive impairment in the Italian Interceptor project.
Since 2001, she has been Full Professor of Neuroscience at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Coordinator Physician for Diagnostic Neuroimaging in Nuclear Medicine Department at IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele in Milan, and Head of the Research Unit Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele.
Since 2015, she has been Director of the School of Specialization in Neuropsychology and, since 2018, Coordinator at the Doctoral School of Cognitive Neuroscience, both at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele.
Daniela earned her Doctor of Medicine and Surgery in 1978 from the University of Milan. She earned her Specialization in Neurology in 1982 and in Radiology in 1986 from the University of Milan.
After her Specialization, she was an Honorary Research Fellow at the MRC Cyclotron Unit and Department of Neurology, Royal Post-Graduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital at the University of London.
In 1989, Daniela continued as a Researcher at the Istituto Tecnologie Biomediche Avanzate CNR in Milano. In 1991, she became the Head of research at the Istituto di Neuroscienze e Bioimmagini at CNR where she worked for 9 years until 2000.
The following year, Daniela became Full Professor in Neuroscience at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan and has been there ever since.
She was an Invited Professor and Guest at the Institut de France “Académie des Sciences”, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCSD in San Diego, and at the Max Planck-Institut fur Neuropsychologische Forschung in Germany.
Daniela is a Member of the Italian Society of Neurology (SIN), Italian Society of Dementia (SinDem), Italian Neuropsychology Society (SINP), Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine (AIMN), International Neuropsychological Society (INS), International Society for Neuroscience, and Member of the International Neuropsychological Symposium, since 2000.
Daniela is one of the top Italian Scientists and ranks as the first female scientist in the field of Neuroscience and Neurology. She participated and is part of several National and International Research Projects in Neurology and Neuroscience. She is the author of more than 700 papers. Her h-index on Google Scholar is 109, and on SCOPUS 93, with more than 49,089 citations.
She was the Italian Coordinator of the RTD projects “Network for Efficiency and Standardization of dementia diagnosis” and “Connectivity in Language Rehabilitation in Stroke” between 2000 and 2003.
Between 2004 and 2010, Daniela was the Italian Coordinator of the Network of Excellence “Diagnostic Molecular Imaging for dementia diagnosis.” She was also the Italian Coordinator European Project “Brain Tuning” between 2006 and 2009.
She was the Coordinator of the 7th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) between 2010 and 2017, with the project “Diagnostic Enhancement of Confidence by an International Distributed Environment” and the project “Understanding the Role of Neuroinflammation in Neurodegenerative diseases” between 2012 and 2017.
Read Localization of grasp representations in humans by PET: 1. Observation versus execution, Listening to action-related sentences activates fronto-parietal motor circuits, Neural language networks at birth, and Cholinergic activity correlates with reserve proxies in Alzheimer’s disease.
Read Study finds genetic regional reductions of gray matter may be underlying cause of dyslexia.
Visit her Academic Homepage, SCOPUS page, and Google Scholar page. Follow her at ResearchGate.