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Giorgio Vallortigara is an Italian neuroscientist.


Biography

In 1983 he graduated in experimental psychology from the
University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...
, where he also obtained his research doctorate in 1990. In 1991 he moved to the
University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...
, with a post-doctoral scholarship. found cerebral lateralization in lower vertebrates, such as fish and amphibians. Many of his articles have been published in
Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
, Science,
Current Biology ''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research artic ...
, PNAS. He was scientific director of the Interdepartmental Center for Mind and Brain (CIMEC) in
Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin language, Ladin and ; ; ; ; ; ), also known in English as Trent, is a city on the Adige, Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the Trentino, autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th ...
, until the first half of 2015. In 2013 he was awarded the Ferrari Soave Award with the following citation: "The main scientific interests of Prof. Giorgio Vallortigara concern the analysis of spatial cognition in birds and the mechanisms underlying their geometric representation. He is particularly interested in the numerical cognition and the biological predisposition to the recognition of animated agents in various animal models. In these fields he has made original and innovative contributions of great international relevance." In 2016 he received the award for ethology
Prix Geoffroy Saint Hilaire Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who a ...
of the French Society for the Study of Animal Behavior and an honorary degree from the
Ruhr University The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began i ...
in
Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...
, Germany.


Selected publications


Books

* ''Cervello di gallina. Visite guidate tra etologia e neuroscienze'' (Hen's brain. Guided tours between ethology and neuroscience), ed. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2005 * ''Nati per credere'' (Born to believe), with V. Girotto & T. Pievani, ed. Codice, Torino, 2008 * ''La mente che scodinzola'' (The mind that wags its tail), ed. Mondadori, Milano, 2011 * ''Divided Brains. The Biology and Behaviour of Brain Asymmetries'', with L.J. Rogers & R.J. Andrew, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2013 * ''Cervelli che contano'' (Brains that count), with Nicla Pancera, ed. Adelphi, 2014 * ''Piccoli equivoci tra noi animali'' (Small misunderstandings between us animals), with Lisa Vozza, ed. Zanichelli, 2015 * ''Pensieri della mosca con la testa storta'' (The fly's thoughts with the crooked mind), ed. Adelphi, Milano, 2021 * ''Born Knowing'', MIT Press, Cambridge, Ma.


Journal articles

Messina, A., Potrich, D., Schiona, I., Sovrano, V.A., Fraser, S.E., Brennan, C.H., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Neurons in the dorso-central division of zebrafish pallium respond to change in visual numerosity. Cerebral Cortex, bhab218, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhab218 Lorenzi, E., Perrino, M., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Numerosities and other magnitudes in the brains: A comparative view. Frontiers in Psychology - Cognition, 12:641994. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.641994 Vallortigara, G. (2021). The rose and the fly. A conjecture on the origin of consciousness. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 564: 170-174. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2020.11.005. Bortot, M., Stancher, G., Vallortigara, G. (2020). Transfer from number to size reveals abstract coding of magnitude in honeybees. iScience, 23: 101122 https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.isci.2020.101122 Vallortigara, G., Rogers, L.J. (2020). A function for the bicameral mind. Cortex, 124: 274-285. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.11.018 Hebert, M., Versace, E., Vallortigara, G. (2019). Inexperienced preys know when to flee or to freeze in front of a threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA,116: 22918-22920. Vallortigara, G. (2019). Q & A Giorgio Vallortigara. Current Biology, R606-R608, July 8 2019. Buiatti, M., Di Giorgio, E., Piazza, M., Polloni, C., Menna, G., Taddei, F., Baldo, E., Vallortigara, G. (2019). A cortical route for face-like pattern processing in human newborns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 116: 4625-4630. Schnell, A.K., Bellanger, C., Vallortigara, G., Jozet-Alves, C. (2018). Visual asymmetries in cuttlefish during brightness matching for camouflage. Current Biology, 28: 925-926. Versace, E., Martinho-Truswel, A., Kacelnik, A., Vallortigara, G. (2018). Priors in animal and artificial intelligence: Where does learning begin? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22: 963-965. Vallortigara, G. (2018). Comparative cognition of number and space: The case of geometry and of the mental number line. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0615. Rosa-Salva, O., Hernik, M., Broseghini, A., Vallortigara, G. (2018). Visually-naïve chicks prefer agents that move as if constrained by a bilateral body-plan. Cognition, 173: 106-114. Rugani, R., Vallortigara, G., Priftis, K., Regolin, L. (2015). Number-space mapping in the newborn chick resembles humans’ mental number line. Science, 347: 534-536. Fontanari, L., Gonzalez, M., Vallortigara, G., Girotto, V. (2014). Probabilistic cognition in two Maya indigenous groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 111: 17075-17080.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vallortigara, Giorgio Italian neuroscientists 1959 births Living people