Giacomo Rizzolatti (born 28 April 1937) is an Italian
neurophysiologist who works at the
University of Parma
The University of Parma ( it, Università degli Studi di Parma, UNIPR) is a public university in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is organised in nine departments. As of 2016 the University of Parma has about 26,000 students.
History
During the ...
. Born in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
,
UkSSR, he is the Senior Scientist of the research team that discovered
mirror neurons
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons hav ...
in the
frontal
Front may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film
* ''The Front'', 1976 film
Music
* The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
and
parietal cortex of the
macaque monkey
The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and (in one instance) Gibraltar. Macaques are principall ...
, and has written many scientific articles on the topic. He also proposed the
premotor theory of attention. He is a past president of the
European Brain and Behaviour Society. Rizzolatti was the 2007 co-recipient, with Leonardo Fogassi and Vittorio Gallese, for the
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one o ...
Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Awards () are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology. The religion awa ...
for Psychology.
He is an elected member of the
Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
,
, and
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
In 2020 he adheres to
Empathism
The Empathic Movement (Italian: ''La Scuola Empatica / Empatismo'') is a literary, artistic, philosophical and cultural movement born in the South of Italy in 2020 within the 'New Cultural Triangle of Ancient Cilento': Omignano - "The Aphorisms ...
.
Awards
*2011
Prince of Asturias Award
The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios PrÃncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...
for Technical and Scientific Research.
These are listed on the right side of the Wikipedia page:
*
Golgi Prize for Physiology
*
George Miller Award
*
Feltrinelli Prize for Medicine
*
Herlitzka Prize for Physiology
Selected works
*
*
References
Biography at University of Parma
External link
*
1937 births
Living people
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
University of Padua alumni
University of Parma faculty
Italian neuroscientists
Scientists from Kyiv
Italian neurologists
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