Dr Elia Valentini
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Email
evalent@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873710
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Location
4.701, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
"open door" policy 9-18
Profile
Biography
I studied Psychology at SapienzaUniversity of Rome. During the PhD course in Cognitive plasticity and rehabilitation funded by Sapienza University I had the opportunity to have a research experience in Oxford (Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Genetics). My post-doc experience started at University College London (Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology) and prolonged at Sapienza University of Rome (Department of Psychology) before joining the department of Psychology and the Centre for Brain Science in 2015. https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=oLKwJFUAAAAJ&hl=en https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elia_Valentini
Qualifications
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PhD Sapienza University of Rome,
Appointments
Other academic
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Lecturer, Psychology, University of Essex (2/9/2015 - present)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
My research investigates how people perceive negative valence information, how they interpret both physical and psychological events as threatening.
Some keywords in my projects are therefore threat, pain, anxiety, emotion, attention. Current projects would involve measuring electroencephalography and other psychophysiological measures, subjective reports (i.e. from sensory ratings to personality questionnaires), cognitive and behavioural performance in a multisensory setting .
This interest led to the development of experimental questions adressing topics that span from basic processing of sensory stimuli to the complex interaction between cognition emotion and body representation in the brain.
Conferences and presentations
Chair of the symposium entitled Electroencephalographic advancements in the study of pain and of its cognitive and affective modulations. Talk entitled Impact of reminders of death on pain and sensory representation as measured by electroencephalographic activity in healthy individuals. The 3rd international conference of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN). Porto 23-26 of June 2016.
2016
Valentini E. Representation of potentially noxious events in the brain: quest for a preattentive nociceptive sensory trace. NEURONUS 2016 IBRO & IRUN Neuroscience Forum. Krakow, Poland. April 22-24 2016.
2016
Valentini E., Nicolardi V., Aglioti S.M. Pain engrams: behavioural and neural correlates of nociceptive working memory. 9th EFIC European Congress on pain. Vienna, Austria, 2-5 September 2015.
2015
Processing of nociceptive deviant input in the brain: is there a real preattentive nociceptive-related mismatch response? 7th Conference on the Mismatch Negativity (MMN). Leipzig, Germany. September 8-11 2015.
2015
Valentini E., Nicolardi V., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Thoughts of death modulate the cortical responses to threatening stimuli. 15th World Congress on Pain. Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 6-11, 2014.
2014
Functional significance of nociceptive event-related potentials: evidence from EEG studies of the somatosensory system. Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, Argentina. October 14 2014.
2014
Repetition suppression of nociceptive event-related potentials: evidence from EEG studies of the somatosensory system. Repetition suppression summer school (RESUS). University of Jena, Germany. September 7-12 2014.
2014
Valentini E., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Vision analgesia and arms crossing analgesia: do they interact? Satellite meeting of 8th EFIC European Congress on pain. Neural circuits underlying nociception and pain and their plasticity. Heidelberg, Germany, 6-8 October, 2013.
2013
Valentini E., Zhao C., Peng W.W., Hu L., 2012. Mismatch responses evoked by nociceptive stimuli: a preliminary investigation. 14th IASP World Congress on pain. Milan, Italy, August 26-31, 2012.
2012
Attentional modulations of pain: evidence from laser evoked EEG potentials. Southwest University, Chongqing, China, June 29th 2012.
2012
Valentini E., Torta D., Mouraux A, Iannetti G. Determinants of laser evoked EEG responses: effect of predictable and unpredictable changes in stimulus modality. 13th IASP World Congress on Pain. Montreal, Canada, August 29th - September 2nd, 2010.
2010
Selected Presentations
Invited talks
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Statistics for Psychologists (PS115)
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Introduction to Personal Development and Employability (PS117)
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Brain and Behaviour (PS411)
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Enhancing employability and career planning (PS417)
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Advanced employability skills and career progression (PS492)
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Psychology of Body, Senses and Existence (PS502)
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Believing is Seeing. The power of belief and suggestion on the mind and brain (PS508)
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MSc Psychology Research Project (PS900)
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Research Project (MSc) (PS934)
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Advanced Brain and Behaviour (PS943)
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Theory and Methods in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology (PS949)
Current supervision
Publications
Journal articles (35)
Stefanics, G., Heinzle, J., Czigler, I., Valentini, E. and Stephan, KE., (2018). Timing of repetition suppression of event-related potentials to unattended objects. European Journal of Neuroscience
Valentini, E. and Gyimes, IL., (2018). Visual cues of threat elicit greater steady-state electroencephalographic responses than visual reminders of death. Biological Psychology. 139, 73-86
Valentini, E., Nicolardi, V. and Aglioti, SM., (2017). Painful engrams: Oscillatory correlates of working memory for phasic nociceptive laser stimuli. Brain and Cognition. 115, 21-32
Torta, DM., Legrain, V., Mouraux, A. and Valentini, E., (2017). Attention to pain! A neurocognitive perspective on attentional modulation of pain in neuroimaging studies. Cortex. 89, 120-134
Valentini, E., Nicolardi, V. and Aglioti, SM., (2017). Visual reminders of death enhance nociceptive–related cortical responses and event-related alpha desynchronisation. Biological Psychology. 129, 121-130
Nicolardi, V. and Valentini, E., (2016). Commentary: Top-down and bottom-up modulation of pain-induced oscillations. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 10 (APR2016), 1-3
Valentini, E., Koch, K. and Aglioti, SM., (2015). Seeing One's Own Painful Hand Positioned in the Contralateral Space Reduces Subjective Reports of Pain and Modulates Laser Evoked Potentials. The Journal of Pain. 16 (6), 499-507
Valentini, E., Koch, K., Nicolardi, V. and Aglioti, SM., (2015). Mortality salience modulates cortical responses to painful somatosensory stimulation: Evidence from slow wave and delta band activity. NeuroImage. 120, 12-24
Martini, M., Lee, MCH., Valentini, E. and Iannetti, GD., (2015). Intracortical modulation, and not spinal inhibition, mediates placebo analgesia. European Journal of Neuroscience. 41 (4), 498-504
Zhao, C., Valentini, E. and Hu, L., (2015). Functional features of crossmodal mismatch responses. Experimental Brain Research. 233 (2), 617-629
Porciello, G., Crostella, F., Liuzza, MT., Valentini, E. and Aglioti, SM., (2014). rTMS-induced virtual lesion of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) alters the control of reflexive shifts of social attention triggered by pointing hands. Neuropsychologia. 59 (1), 148-156
Valentini, E., Koch, K. and Aglioti, SM., (2014). Thoughts of Death Modulate Psychophysical and Cortical Responses to Threatening Stimuli. PLoS ONE. 9 (11), e112324-e112324
Valentini, E., Martini, M., Lee, M., Aglioti, SM. and Iannetti, GD., (2014). Corrigendum to “Seeing facial expressions enhances placebo analgesia” [PAIN® 155(4) (2014) 666–673]. Pain. 155 (8), 1676-1676
Valentini, E., Martini, M., Lee, M., Aglioti, SM. and Iannetti, G., (2014). Seeing facial expressions enhances placebo analgesia. Pain. 155 (4), 666-673
Hu, L., Valentini, E., Zhang, ZG., Liang, M. and Iannetti, GD., (2014). The primary somatosensory cortex contributes to the latest part of the cortical response elicited by nociceptive somatosensory stimuli in humans. NeuroImage. 84, 383-393
Martini, M., Valentini, E. and Aglioti, SM., (2013). Emotional conflict in a model modulates nociceptive processing in an onlooker: a laser-evoked potentials study. Experimental Brain Research. 225 (2), 237-245
Valentini, E., Betti, V., Hu, L. and Aglioti, SM., (2013). Hypnotic modulation of pain perception and of brain activity triggered by nociceptive laser stimuli. Cortex. 49 (2), 446-462
Ronga, I., Valentini, E., Mouraux, A. and Iannetti, GD., (2013). Novelty is not enough: laser-evoked potentials are determined by stimulus saliency, not absolute novelty. Journal of Neurophysiology. 109 (3), 692-701
Hu, L., Zhao, C., Li, H. and Valentini, E., (2013). Mismatch responses evoked by nociceptive stimuli. Psychophysiology. 50 (2), 158-173
Hu, L., Peng, W., Valentini, E., Zhang, Z. and Hu, Y., (2013). Functional Features of Nociceptive-Induced Suppression of Alpha Band Electroencephalographic Oscillations. The Journal of Pain. 14 (1), 89-99
Wang, WY., Hu, L., Valentini, E., Xie, XB., Cui, HY. and Hu, Y., (2012). Dynamic characteristics of multisensory facilitation and inhibition. Cognitive Neurodynamics. 6 (5), 409-419
Valentini, E., Liang, M., Aglioti, SM. and Iannetti, GD., (2012). Seeing touch and pain in a stranger modulates the cortical responses elicited by somatosensory but not auditory stimulation. Human Brain Mapping. 33 (12), 2873-2884
Valentini, E. and Koch, K., (2012). Fine-grained analysis of shared neural circuits between perceived and observed pain: implications for the study of empathy for pain. Journal of Neurophysiology. 108 (7), 1805-1807
Legrain, V., Mancini, F., Sambo, CF., Torta, DM., Ronga, I. and Valentini, E., (2012). Cognitive aspects of nociception and pain. Bridging neurophysiology with cognitive psychology. Neurophysiologie Clinique/Clinical Neurophysiology. 42 (5), 325-336
Torta, DM., Liang, M., Valentini, E., Mouraux, A. and Iannetti, GD., (2012). Dishabituation of laser-evoked EEG responses: dissecting the effect of certain and uncertain changes in stimulus spatial location. Experimental Brain Research. 218 (3), 361-372
Valentini, E., Hu, L., Chakrabarti, B., Hu, Y., Aglioti, SM. and Iannetti, GD., (2012). The primary somatosensory cortex largely contributes to the early part of the cortical response elicited by nociceptive stimuli. NeuroImage. 59 (2), 1571-1581
Valentini, E., (2011). The Role of Perceptual Expectation on Repetition Suppression: A Quest to Dissect the Differential Contribution of Probability of Occurrence and Event Predictability. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 5
Valentini, E., Torta, DME., Mouraux, A. and Iannetti, GD., (2011). Dishabituation of Laser-evoked EEG Responses: Dissecting the Effect of Certain and Uncertain Changes in Stimulus Modality. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 23 (10), 2822-2837
Valentini, E., Ferrara, M., Presaghi, F., De Gennaro, L. and Curcio, G., (2011). Republished review: Systematic review and meta-analysis of psychomotor effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields. Postgraduate Medical Journal. 87 (1031), 643-651
(2010). Corrections. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 67 (12), 877-877
Valentini, E., Ferrara, M., Presaghi, F., Gennaro, LD. and Curcio, G., (2010). Systematic review and meta-analysis of psychomotor effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 67 (10), 708-716
Valentini, E., (2010). The Role of Anterior Insula and Anterior Cingulate in Empathy for Pain. Journal of Neurophysiology. 104 (2), 584-586
Curcio, G., Valentini, E., Moroni, F., Ferrara, M., De Gennaro, L. and Bertini, M., (2008). Psychomotor performance is not influenced by brief repeated exposures to mobile phones. Bioelectromagnetics. 29 (3), 237-241
Curcio, G. and Valentini, E., (2008). Response to comments by Balzano and Swicord on “neurophysiological effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields on humans: A comprehensive review”. Bioelectromagnetics. 29 (5), 411-411
Valentini, E., Curcio, G., Moroni, F., Ferrara, M., De Gennaro, L. and Bertini, M., (2007). Neurophysiological effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields on humans: A comprehensive review. Bioelectromagnetics. 28 (6), 415-432
Grants and funding
2017
The painful awareness of death: influence of thoughts of death on behavioural and cerebral activity associated with painful nociceptive stimuli
Bial Foundation
2016
The painful awareness of death: influence of thoughts of death on behavioral and cerebral activity assocaited with painful nociceptive stimuli
Bial Foundation
Contact
Academic support hours:
"open door" policy 9-18
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