FRANCANTONIO DEVOTO

PhD Student

I achieved my Master Degree in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pavia in July 2015 and since May 2018 and I am a qualified Psychologist (Ordine degli Psicologi della Lombardia – registration number: 20744). In January 2017 I have been involved in a collaboration between the University of Milano-Bicocca, the IRCCS Orthopedic Institute Galeazzi and the Policlinico San Donato to study the effects of a deep repetitive  Trancranial Magnetic Stimulation (deep rTMS) treatment aimed at reducing food cravings in clinically obese patients. Since November 2017 I am a PhD Student in Clinical Neuroscience at the School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca.
My main research interests concern the neuroscience of reward processing, with particular reference to the study of food perception and the concept of food addiction. Particularly, I am interested in the neurofunctional correlates of food craving and their commonalities with those of individuals addicted to substances of abuse. To these aims, I combine behavioral, neuroimaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) and meta-analytical techniques. 
Recently, I have been involved in the study of the plastic changes associated with a treatment of deep rTMS targeting the bilateral insulae and prefrontal cortices aimed at reducing food cravings in obese individuals. During this project, I will focus on the neurofunctional biomarkers of weight loss, by measuring network-level changes associated with the stimulation protocol as revealed by resting-state fMRI data. In particular, I am interested in the role of the insula in food cravings and in the effects of the stimulation protocol on its functional connectivity.