Laura Sebastiani

Dott. Laura Sebastiani is an Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Translational Research and of New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery. Her activity over the past 15 years has focused on three main research lines:

• study of the autonomic and EEG dynamics evoked by emotional stimuli and/or by specific stressful conditions in healthy individuals with different cognitive traits and in people with animal phobia. Recently she has started a collaboration with the Dept. of Pharmacy on changes of the salivary proteome in conditions of test anxiety and on the modulation of its expression by olfactory stimuli and sex hormones.
• Study of the cognitive (e.g. interoceptive awareness) and psychophysiological characteristics of individuals with different levels of susceptibility to hypnosis (in collaboration with Prof. Santarcangelo).
• Study of the effects of nocturnal sleep and daytime naps on information reorganization and memory consolidation of tasks learned by means of motor imagery training. The study has recently extended to the investigation of the association between mentation (dreams) during naps and sleep features.

Publications of prof. Sebastiani