Simona Monaco

2009

PhD in Neurofisiologia, Università di Bologna e University of Western Ontario

Supervisori: Jody Culham and Claudio Galletti

2004

Corso di laurea in Farmacia, Università di Bologna    

Supervisore: Patrizia Fattori

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

2020-present

Principal Investigator (RTD-A), Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento

2019-2020

Post-doctoral fellow, Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento

Advisor: Luca Turella

2016-2018

Principal Investigator on Marie Curie grant-funded research program (BraIn Action), Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento

Advisor: Luigi Cattaneo

2014-2016

Post-doctoral fellow, Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento

Advisor: Luca Turella

2010-2014

Post-doctoral fellow, Centre for Vision Research, York University

Advisors: Denise Henriques and Doug Crawford

2009-2010

Post-doctoral fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario

Advisor: Jody Culham

2005-2009

Visiting scholar, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario

Advisor: Jody Culham

TEACHING

Invited lectures:

2022: Advanced Topics in Motor Cognition, Master’s course in Cognitive Science, CIMeC, University of Trento, Italy

2021: Advanced Topics in Motor Cognition, Master’s course in Cognitive Science, CIMeC, University of Trento, Italy

2015: Biological Psychology, Undergraduate course in Psychology, Alpen-Adria-Universität, Klagenfurt, Austria

2015: Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, Master’s course in Cognitive Science, CIMeC, University of Trento, Italy

2014: Visuospatial Memory and Goal Directed Action, Undergraduate course in Psychology, York University, Toronto

2012: Neural Control of Movement, Undergraduate students in Kinesiology, York University, Toronto

Courses:

2014: fMRI data preprocessing and analyses, hands-on methods course for Master’s and PhD students, York University, Toronto

2012: Advanced fMRI analyses, hands-on methods course for Master’s students in Psychology, York University, Toronto

I use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study how the human brain processes visual and haptic information to guide actions. My research interests encompass the visual as well as the cognitive and motor neurosciences. In particular, my main area of research fills a valuable niche in Perception and Action by investigating their relationship with other forms of cognition, such as Motor Imagery, and by putting emphasis on the Top-down aspects of processing. The importance of studying actions lies on the fact that they are essential to satisfy our basic needs, and they are also the only way we have of affecting the world around us.

Another venue of my research work focuses on examining the neural processing of Touch in perceiving our surroundings and guiding object-directed actions. Touch is indispensable in situations when vision is not available, like in case of darkness or in blind individuals, not only to perceive shapes but also for actions and hand use. Although hundreds of studies in sighted individuals have investigated how the brain recognizes objects using vision, far less is known about how the brain uses touch for perception and to guide movements.

My most recent work aims to determine how action goals, plans, and multisensory information are fed back to the primary visual cortex (V1). Indeed, it is well known that V1 provides detailed retinotopic representations and sends input to higher-order areas for perception and action. Importantly, the less known aspect of V1 is related to the fact that it also receives feedback from higher-order areas that are necessary for contextualizing our goals, building associations between vision and other senses, and ultimately, planning actions.

MEMBERSHIPS OF SOCIETIES

2023: Società Italiana di Neuroscienze

2022: Italian Association for Cognitive Sciences

2016-present: Italian Physiological Society

2015, 2019: Italian Society of Psychophysiology

2005, 2015-2018, 2023: Vision Sciences Society

2008-2016: Society for Neuroscience

2012-2014: Canadian Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience

2013-2014: Canadian Association for Neuroscience

AD-HOC REVIEWER FOR SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS

Behavioural Brain Research, Brain and Behavior, Brain and Cognition, Brain Structure and Function, Brain Topography, Cerebral Cortex, Cortex, Experimental Brain Research, European Journal of Neuroscience, Frontiers Systems Neuroscience, Human Brain Mapping, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of the American Aging Association, MethodX, NeuroImage, Neuropsychologia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Scientific Reports

REVIEWER IN SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEES

2022: External reviewer for one grant application to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

2021: External reviewer for one grant application to the National Science Foundation (NSF)

2021: External reviewer for one grant application to the French National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recerche, ANR)

2019: Expert evaluator for Marie Sklodowska-Curie individual fellowship proposals, European Commission (Research Executive Agency), Horizon 2020 framework

2023-2025: Ministry of University and Research, Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN 2022). Project title: “TABID: Targeting attentional biases in depression: A longitudinal multimodal neuroimaging investigation”. €198,464. Role: Principal Investigator at the University of Trento, Project coordinator: Sabrina Fagioli at the University of Rome 3

2022-2025: Ministry of University and Research, Next generation EU programme under Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e resilienza (PNRR). Project title: “PrefAcE, Predictions for Action Execution: the neural basis of movement intention”, €293,451.37

2021-2022: University of Trento Starting Grant Giovani Ricercatori, €5,200

2016-2018: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 703597 (BraIn Action). “A New View on Real Actions: Neural Mechanisms of Visuo-Motor Transformations”. Principal Investigator, €168,277.20

2014: Southern Ontario Neuroscience Association, Travel Award to attend the Society for Neuroscience, C$1,000

2007: University of Bologna, Travel Award for research project at the University of Western Ontario, €1,400

2006-2008: Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, Doctoral Scholarship, €32,000

2005: University of Bologna, Marco Polo Travel Award for research internship at the University of Western Ontario, €2,000

NVITED TALKS (15)

1. School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth (February 2021). The role of the early visual cortex in action and perception: beyond visual processing.
2. Department of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Germany (November 2019). The role of the early visual cortex in action: contribution of vision, imagery and touch.
3. Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (April 2018). The role of the early visual cortex in action and perception: beyond visual processing.
4. Department of Psychology at Bilkent University, Ankara (March 2018). The role of the early visual cortex in action and perception: beyond visual processing. 
5. Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona (November 2017). The role of the early visual cortex in action: contribution of vision, imagery and touch. 
6. Satellite meeting at the Society for the Neural Control of Movement in Dublin, Ireland (May 2017). Neural coding of action: contribution of Vision and Touch.
7. Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology/School of Psychology, University of Glasgow (January 2017). The role of the primary visual cortex in action planning.
8. Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada (November 2016). Neural coding of action planning and execution in the early visual cortex: contribution of Vision, Touch and Imagery.
9. Symposium of the Italian Physiological Society, Catania (September 2016). Recruitment of foveal retinotopic cortex in humans during haptic exploration of shapes and subsequent actions in the dark.
10. International School for Advanced Studies, University of Trieste (April 2016). Neural coding of action planning: contribution of Vision, Touch and Imagery.
11. Symposium of the Italian Physiological Society, Genoa (September 2015). Neural coding of action planning with and without visual feedback.
12. Department of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich (June 2014). Involvement of ventral and dorsal stream areas in processing three-dimensional object properties for grasping.
13. Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento (June 2014). Involvement of ventral and dorsal stream areas in processing three-dimensional object properties for grasping.
14. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada (March 2014). Neural substrates involved in processing three-dimensional object properties for grasping.
15. Research Group Perception and Action, University of Giessen, Germany (May 2011). Neural substrates involved in processing three-dimensional object properties for grasping.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (66)

TALKS (17)

1. Monaco S, Turella L, Culham J, Cattaneo L. (September 2023). Decoding action intention and haptic information in the early visual cortex: beyond visual processing. Talk at the Italian Society of Neuroscience, Turin, Italy. 
2. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Pizzato L, Turella L. (September 2021). Decoding action intention with and without visual information from the activity pattern in the human early visual cortex. Talk at the Italian Society of Physiology, Milan, Italy. 
3. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Pizzato L, Turella L. (January 2020). Decoding action intention with and without visual information from the activity pattern in the foveal cortex. Talk at the European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Brixen, Italy. 
4. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Culham JC, Cattaneo L, Turella L. (September 2019). Decoding real and imagined actions in the Early Visual Cortex. Talk at the 7th International Congress on Cognitive Neurodynamics, Alghero, Italy
5. Monaco S (May 2017). The role of the early visual cortex in action. Talk at the Symposium of the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2018;10(380). doi:10.1167/17.10.380 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract). 
6. Baltaretu B, Monaco S, Velji-Ibrahim J, Luabeya GN, Crawford JD (November 2017). Transsaccadic updating of object orientation for grasp planning: An fMRIa study. Talk at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.
7. Baltaretu B, Monaco S, Velji-Ibrahim J, Luabeya GN, Crawford JD (May 2017). A neuroimaging study of the neural mechanisms involved in updating grasp plans. Talk at the the Canadian Action and Perception Satellite Meeting, Montreal, Quebec.
8. Monaco S, Pellencin E, Malfatti G, Turella L (May 2016). Neural coding of action planning: visual processing or visual memory? Talk at annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2016;16(12):23-23. doi:10.1167/16.12.23 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).
9. Monaco S, Pellencin E, Malfatti G, Turella L (January 2016). Neural coding of action planning with and without visual feedback. Talk at the annual meeting of the European Workshop of Neuropsychology, Brixen, Italy.
10. Monaco S, Pellencin E, Malfatti G, Turella L (November 2015). Neural coding of action planning with and without visual feedback. Talk at the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology, Lucca, Italy.
11. Monaco S, Pellencin E, Malfatti G, Turella L (October 2015). Neural coding of action planning with and without visual feedback. Talk at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, Illinois.
12. Monaco S, Sedda A, Fattori P, Galletti C, Culham JC. (October 2009). Functional magnetic resonance adaptation (fMRA) reveals the involvement of the dorsomedial stream in wrist orientation for grasping. Talk at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, Illinois.
13. Wood DK, Monaco S, McAdam TD, McLean DA, Dutton, GN, Culham JC, Goodale MA. (October 2009). Impaired selection of wrist posture in a patient with a parietal occipital lesion. Talk at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, Illinois.
14. Monaco S, McAdam TD, McLean DA, Culham JC, Singhal A. (November 2008). fMRI reactivation in the Lateral Occipital Complex during action execution and action imagery toward visually and haptically explored objects. Talk at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.
15. Culham JC, Wolf ME, Whitwell RL, Brown LE, Khan, SA, Cant JS, Monaco S, Dutton GN, Goodale MA. (June 2008). fMRI and behavioral testing reveal preserved motion processing and visuomotor control in a patient with extensive occipitotemporal lesions. Talk at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science, London, Ontario, Canada.
16. Cavina-Pratesi C, Monaco S, McAdam TD, Milner T, Schenk T, Culham JC. (November 2007). Which aspects of hand-preshaping does human AIP compute during visually guided actions? Evidence from event-related fMRI. Talk at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, California.
17. Monaco S, Fattori P, Galletti C, Goodale MA, Króliczak G, Quinlan D, Culham JC (May 2006). The contribution of visual and proprioceptive information to the precision of reaching movements. Talk at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2006; 6(6):397-397. doi: 10.1167/6.6.397 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).

POSTERS (49)

1. Sartin S, Danaj F, Del Giudice F, Sperandio I, Monaco S (May 2023). Cortical areas involved in imagery and haptic exploration of object size. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2023;23, 4991. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.9.4991 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract). 
2. Sartin S, Danaj F, Del Giudice F, Sperandio I, Chen J, Monaco S (May 2023). Haptic size decoding in the early visual cortex. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects in Rovereto, Italy.
3. Sartin S, Danaj F, Del Giudice F, Sperandio I, Monaco S (September 2022). Human brain areas involved in imagined and haptically explored objects. Poster presented at the Minerva-Gentner Symposium on Perception, recognition and control of goal-directed actions: from cognitive to neural representations, Regensburg, Germany.
4. Del Giudice F, Dal Monte D, Caleca L, Danaj F, Sartin S, Sperandio I, Monaco S (September 2022). Behavioural relevance of haptic processing of object size in the primary visual cortex. Poster presented at the 8ᵗʰ European Student Conference on Behaviour & Cognition, Rovereto, Italy.
5. Sartin S, Dal Monte D, Del Giudice F, Caleca L, Danaj F, , Sperandio I, Monaco S (August 2022). Behavioural relevance of haptic processing of object size in the primary visual cortex. Abstract accepted for poster presentation at the European Conference on Visual Perception, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
6. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Pizzato L, Turella L (January 2020). Decoding action intention with and without visual information from the activity pattern in the foveal cortex. Poster presented at the European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Brixen, Italy. 
7. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Culham JC, Cattaneo L, Turella L. (November 2019). Decoding reveals overlapping but not shared contents of action planning and motor imagery in the early visual cortex. Poster presented at the Italian Society of Psychophysiology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Ferrara, Italy.
8. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Culham JC, Cattaneo L, Turella L. (October 2019). Overlapping but not shared neural representation for planning and imagining hand movements in the Early Visual Cortex. Poster presented at the Rovereto Attention Workshop, Rovereto, Italy.
9. Pirruccio M, Cattaneo L, Della Libera C, Monaco S. Gaze direction modulates hand shaping during grasping actions towards haptically explored objects (November 2019). Poster presented at the Italian Society of Psychophysiology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Ferrara, Italy.
10. Pirruccio M, Cattaneo L, Della Libera C, Monaco S. Evidence for foveal haptic representation of objects in the absence of vision (September 2019). Poster presented at the meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology, Tenerife, Spain.
11. Turella L, Malfatti G, Monaco S, Culham JC, Cattaneo L. (September 2019). Decoding Modality-invariant Spatial Targets from Planning-related Activity in Early Visual Areas Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Federation of European Physiological Societies, Bologna, Italy.
12. Turella L, Malfatti G, Monaco S, Culham JC, Cattaneo L. (June 2019). Modality-invariant Representation of Spatial Targets Within V1 during Action Planning. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Rome, Italy.
13. Velji-Ibrahim J, Crawford JD, Cattaneo L, Monaco S. (May 2018). fMRI reveals that during action planning the activity pattern in early visual areas is modulated in an action-dependent manner. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects in Rovereto, Italy.
14. Velji-Ibrahim J, Crawford JD, Monaco S. (May 2018). Beyond sensory processing: Human neuroimaging shows task-dependent functional connectivity between V1 and somatomotor areas during action planning. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2018;18(10):70-70. doi:10.1167/18.10.70 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).
15. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Pizzato L, Cattaneo L, Turella L. (May 2018). Decoding action intention from the activity pattern in the Foveal Cortex. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2018;18(10):72-72. doi:10.1167/18.10.72 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).
16. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Culham JC, Cattaneo L, Turella L. (May 2017). Decoding real and imagined actions: overlapping but distinct neural representations for planning vs. imagining hand movements. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2018;17(10):458-458. doi:10.1167/17.10.458 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).
17. Baltaretu B, Monaco S, Velji-Ibrahim J, Luabeya GN, Crawford JD (May 2018). Cortical mechanisms for updating grasp orientation during saccades: An fMRI study. Poster presented at the Canadian Action and Perception Network, Vancouver, BC.
18. Baltaretu B, Monaco S, Velji-Ibrahim J, Luabeya GN, Crawford JD (July 2017). Neuroimaging study of cortical correlates of grasp plan updating during saccades. Poster presented at the Gordon Research Conferences: Eye Movements, Lewiston, ME.
19. Baltaretu B, Monaco S, Velji-Ibrahim J, Luabeya GN, Crawford JD (July 2017). Transsaccadic integration of object orientation for grasp planning: an fMRIa study. Poster presented at the Centre for Vision Research Conference, Toronto, Otario.
20. Baltaretu B, Monaco S, Le A, Velji-Ibrahim J, Luabeya G, Crawford JC. (May 2017). Neural mechanisms for updating grasp plans: An fMRI study. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2018;17(10):475-475. doi:10.1167/17.10.457 (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).
21. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Pizzato L, Cattaneo L, Turella L. (May 2017). The role of the early visual cortex in action planning with and without visual information. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects in Rovereto, Italy.
22. Monaco S, Menghi N, Chen Y, Crawford JD (May 2017). Increased functional connectivity between the early visual cortex and sensory-motor areas when planning an action in the dark. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects in Rovereto, Italy.
23. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Culham JC, Turella L, Cattaneo L. (November 2016). Human neuroimaging suggests overlapping but distinct representations for planning vs. imagining hand actions. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, California.
24. Monaco S, Malfatti G, Cattaneo L, Culham JC, Turella L (May 2016). Human neuroimaging suggests overlapping but distinct representations for planning vs. imagining hand actions. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects in Rovereto, Italy.
25. Monaco S, Pellencin E, Malfatti G, Turella L (January 2016). Neural coding of action planning with and without visual feedback. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the European Workshop of Neuropsychology, Brixen, Italy.
26. Malfatti G, Monaco S, Barchiesi G, Cattaneo L, Turella L (May 2016). Do dorsolateral and dorsomedial pathways interact? Investigating parieto-frontal connectivity during a prehension task: a TMS-fMRI study. Poster presented at annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida.
27. Malfatti G, Monaco S, Barchiesi G, Cattaneo L, Turella L (May 2016) Understanding the interaction between dorsomedial and dorsolateral pathways during action planning: a TMS-fMRI approach. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects (CAOs), Rovereto, Italy.
28. Malfatti G, Monaco S, Barchiesi G, Cattaneo L, Turella L (November 2015). Causal modulation of the neural interactions during the planning phase of prehension movement: a TMS-fMRI approach. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology, Lucca, Italy.
29. Monaco S, Crawford JD (May 2015). Human cortical activity for visual processing is modulated by cued actions. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Science Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida. Journal of Vision. 2015; 15(12):1144-1144. doi: 10.1167/15.12.1144. (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract).
30. Monaco S, Pellencin E, Malfatti G, Turella L (May 2015). Neural processing of object representation for action planning. Poster presented at the annual meeting of Concepts, Actions and Objects in Rovereto, Italy.
31. Baltaretu BT, Dunkley B, Monaco S, Chen Y, Crawford JD. Space-fixed, retina-fixed, and frame-independent mechanisms of trans-saccadic feature integration: repetition suppression and enhancement in an fMRIa paradigm. (May 2015). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Science Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida.
32. Baltaretu BT, Dunkley B, Monaco S, Crawford JD. Functional MRI adaptation reveals the cortical correlates of space-fixed, retina-fixed and frame-independent trans-saccadic feature integration. (March 2015). Poster presented at the annual meeting of Brain and Aging, Toronto.
33. Monaco S, Chen Y, Crawford JD. Cortical substrates for the integration of object properties and intended actions. (November 2014). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.
34. Cappadocia D, Monaco S, Chen Y, Crawford JD. Directionally selective cortical mechanisms for reaching to a remembered visual location during target memory, motor planning, and motor execution periods. (November 2014). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.
35. Baltaretu BT, Dunkley B, Monaco S, Crawford JD. Spatiotopic vs. retinotopic mechanisms of trans-saccadic feature integration: an fMRIa paradigm. (November 2014). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.
36. Monaco S, Chen Y, AlOmawi N, Crawford JD. Neural substrates involved in the integration of object properties and intended actions. (June 2014). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Hamburg, Germany. 
37. Chen Y, Monaco S, Byrne P, Yan X, Henriques YPD, Crawford JD. Allocentric vs. Egocentric Representation of Remembered Reach Targets in Human Cortex. (June 2014). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Hamburg, Germany. 
38. Monaco S, Chen Y, AlOmawi N, Crawford JD. Neural substrates involved in the integration of object properties and intended actions. (May 2014).  Poster presented at the Canadian Association for Neuroscience Meeting, Montreal, Canada. 
39. Chen Y, Monaco S, Byrne P, Yan X, Henriques YPD, Crawford JD. Allocentric vs. Egocentric Representation of Remembered Reach Targets in Human Cortex. (May 2014).  Poster presented at the Canadian Association for Neuroscience Meeting, Montreal, Canada. 
40. Cappadocia D, Monaco S, Chen Y, Crawford JD. Cortical mechanisms for reaching to a remembered visual location during target memory and motor planning periods: an fMRI study. (May 2014).  Poster presented at the Canadian Association for Neuroscience Meeting, Montreal, Canada
41. Baltaretu BT, Dunkley B, Monaco S, Crawford JD. Trans-saccadic integration of object orientation in a retinotopic vs. spatiotopic reference frame in an fMRI paradigm. (May 2014).  Poster presented at the Canadian Association for Neuroscience Meeting, Montreal, Canada. 
42. AlOmawi N, Dessing JC, Monaco S, Yan X, Crawford JD. Influence of Visual Feedback on Gaze-Dependent and Location-Dependent Errors in Grasping movements. (May 2014).  Poster presented at the Canadian Association for Neuroscience Meeting, Montreal, Canada. 
43. Monaco S, Kamran-Disfani R, Fiehler K, Henriques DYP. Decoding grasp-relevant dimension of 3D objects in the Lateral Occipital Complex in grasping and viewing tasks. (November 2013). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, California.
44. Monaco S, Leoné F, Bunchholz VN, Toni I, Fiehler K, Henriques YPD, Medendorp, P.W. Reference frames for grasping movements: an fMRI repetition suppression study. (October 2012). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, Louisiana.
45. Chen Y, Monaco S, Byrne P, Yan X, Henriques YPD, Crawford JD. Cortical mechanisms for egocentric and allocentric encoding of remembered visual target locations for reach. (October 2012). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, Louisiana.
46. Monaco S, Chen Y, Crawford JD, Medendorp PW, Fiehler K, Henriques YPD. Distinct neural substrates for processing size and graspable dimension of 3D objects in humans. (November 2011). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.
47. Monaco S, Quinlan D, Fattori P, Galletti C, Goodale MA, Culham JC. How do vision and proprioception contribute to the precision of reaching? (June 2008). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Sciences. 
48. Monaco S, Quinlan D, Fattori P, Galletti C, Goodale MA, Culham JC. Visual and proprioceptive guidance of reaching movements (November 2007). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego.
49. Monaco S, Króliczak, Quinlan D, Fattori P, Galletti C, Goodale MA, Culham JC. Proprioceptive information improves the accuracy of reaching when vision is limited (June 2005). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Multisensory Research Forum, Rovereto, Italy.

EDITORIAL WORK

2013-2016: Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Research Topic: “Perceiving and Acting in the real world: from neural activity to behavior”

ORGANIZATION OF SYMPOSIA AND SEMINARS

2017: Symposium at the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, Florida.  (19 May 2017). Title: “The Brain Correlates of Perception and Action: from Neural Activity to Behavior”.

2015-2016: Organized, hosted and coordinated internal seminars at CIMeC with invited speakers from international universities: Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, AU), Bangor University (UK), University of Lethbridge (Alberta, CA), Radboud University (Nijmegen, NL), University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK), University of Toronto (Ontario, CA), University of Glasgow (UK)

OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

2022 - 2023

Organization of a series of neuroscientific seminars for the event CIMeC città in Rovereto 

2021

Seminar and interview (podcast available here) at Collegio Berbardo Clesio in Trento

2019

Participation at the public-engagement event “Chiamata alle arti e alle scienze” in Rovereto. Organized two science laboratories with high-school students: “Come si diventa scienziati?” and “Quanti cervelli abbiamo?” (December 2019).

Participation at the public-engagement event “Il cervello e il tempo” within Focus LIVE in Trento (October 2019)

2018

Participation at the public-engagement event “Chiamata alle arti e alle scienze” in Rovereto. Organized a science laboratory with high-school students: “Quanti cervelli abbiamo?” (November 2018)

Presentation of Marie-Curie European project at the informative session “Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship training days” at the University of Trento (June 2018)

Presentation of Marie-Curie European project to high school students (10th and 11th grade) at Liceo delle Scienze Umane Fabio Filzi in Rovereto (January 2018)

2017

Presentation of the Marie-Curie European project to the general public at the event “Researchers’ night” in Trento (September 2017)

Presentation of the Marie-Curie European project to the general public at the event “Siamo Europa” in Trento (May 2017)

2020-2029: Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale in Fisiologia, settore concorsuale 05/D1, Fascia II. Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca

2018-2027: Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale in Psicologia generale, Psicobiologia e Psicometria, settore concorsuale 11/E1, Fascia II. Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca