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Cosimo Urgesi

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11 papers

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YNIMG Journal 2025 Journal Article

Boosting forward connectivity between primary visual and body selective cortex reduces interference between sex and emotion judgements of bodies

Marco Gandolfo
Giulia D'Argenio
Paul E. Downing
Cosimo Urgesi

We effortlessly categorise other people along socially relevant categories such as sex, age, and emotion. A core question in social vision relates to whether we perceive these categories independently or in relation to each other. Here, we investigated categorisation of sex and emotion from the body, finding that participants generally fail to fully ignore task-irrelevant variations of sex while judging body emotional expressions. In contrast, sex categorisation was unaffected by variations in emotional expression. This asymmetric interaction between sex and emotion may arise because of bottom-up visual processing, due to partially shared visual features used for both judgments, or because of top-down, categorical associations between sex and emotion categories. To disentangle these possibilities, we used cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (ccPAS) to modulate the connectivity between primary visual cortex and the extrastriate body area. We posited that boosting forward connectivity between these regions would increase efficiency of feature-based processing, while boosting feedback connectivity would enhance the separability of semantic categories related to sex and emotion. We found that boosting forward connectivity eliminated the interference of sex on emotion judgments, while that interference remained unaffected with modulation of feedback connectivity. These findings suggest that interactions between sex and emotion in body perception emerge during the perceptual analysis of the stimuli, and add to our understanding of person perception and social categorization.

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YNIMG Journal 2025 Journal Article

Effects of EEG-guided transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) of the cerebellum on motor behavior and electrophysiological activity

Andrea Ciricugno
Maria Arioli
Viola Oldrati
Alessandra Finisguerra
Cosimo Urgesi
Renato Borgatti
Zaira Cattaneo

The cerebellum plays a key role in motor control, yet its oscillatory dynamics remain poorly understood due to anatomical and methodological constraints. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) has emerged as a promising tool to modulate cerebellar activity, particularly when tailored to individual neural oscillations. This study examined the effects of EEG-guided gamma-frequency cerebellar tACS-matched to each participant's individual gamma frequency (IGF)-on motor performance and neurophysiological markers in healthy adults. Forty-four male and female participants completed a visuomotor task while undergoing either real or sham tACS across two sessions. Critically, EEG activity was recorded before and immediately after the stimulation while participants performed the visuomotor task to assess electrophysiological changes in power spectrum density. Measures of corticospinal excitability and inhibition were collected via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocols following each stimulation session. tACS at IGF enhanced motor precision during challenging task conditions and reduced corticospinal inhibition, without affecting corticospinal excitability. EEG analyses revealed IGF-dependent increases in theta-band power post-stimulation in motor regions, suggesting cross-frequency interactions. These findings highlight the potential of personalized cerebellar tACS to enhance motor performance and modulate inhibitory cortical dynamics, supporting its use as a precision neuromodulation tool in both research and clinical settings.

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YNIMG Journal 2025 Journal Article

Investigating the effects of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation on motor cortex excitability and inhibition through paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation

Sara Boscarol
Letizia Turchi
Viola Oldrati
Cosimo Urgesi
Alessandra Finisguerra

Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve stimulation (tVNS) has been proposed as a treatment for refining GABAergic transmission. While the effects of tVNS on behavioral performance in inhibitory control tasks have been already demonstrated, neurophysiological studies investigating its effects on GABA-mediated inhibition in the motor cortex provided contrasting findings. Concurrently, the influence of participants' sex and state conditions remains unexplored. Here we applied single- and paired-pulse TMS to the right or left primary motor cortex in two groups of participants. We measured corticospinal excitability (CSE), short and long intracortical inhibition (SICI and LICI), cortical silent period (cSP) and intracortical facilitation (ICF) indexes. These measures were taken, in a within-subject design, at a baseline session before tVNS and after delivering active or sham tVNS in the Cymba conchae of the left ear. To exploit state-dependent effects and assess the role of tVNS in motor learning, tVNS was applied during the execution of a computerized visuomotor task. In the left TMS group, we observed that the visuomotor performance improved across task blocks during active tVNS only, regardless of participant's sex. Interestingly, in both groups, we found a specific increase of SICI, a proxy of GABAa activity, after active versus sham-tVNS and baseline evaluations, which was specifically limited to female participants. No effects on CSE, ICF or GABAb-mediated intracortical inhibition indexes were observed. The results show specific effects of tVNS on motor learning and GABAa-mediated motor inhibition, providing supportive evidence for the application of tVNS as a coadjuvant treatment for disorders with altered inhibition mechanisms.

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YNIMG Journal 2025 Journal Article

Unveiling the alterations of action processing and mu rhythm in Williams Syndrome

Viola Oldrati
Niccolò Butti
Elisabetta Ferrari
Caterina Piazza
Romina Romaniello
Chiara Gagliardi
Alessandra Finisguerra
Cosimo Urgesi

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by social difficulties, which may stem from atypical action processing. We investigated whether individuals with WS show impaired action processing as indexed by electroencephalographic (EEG) mu suppression, a biomarker of action processing. 17 individuals with WS, 17 healthy controls (HC) and 17 individuals with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) participated in the study. During EEG recording, participants performed a task requiring to predict actions under perceptual ambiguity. In a preceding learning phase, the probability of actions co-occurring with contextual cues was manipulated to establish varying association strengths: high informativeness from very frequent or rare pairings, and moderate informativeness from intermediate ones. A control task required to use contextual cues for predicting moving shapes. HC and WS groups, but not the IDD group, utilized contextual cues to predict action/shape unfolding. EEG data revealed distinct patterns of mu event-related desynchronization (mu-ERD) across groups. In the HC group, mu-ERD was stronger during action than shape prediction and varied with the cue probability, with greater mu-ERD in low vs. high probability trials. In WS and IDD, mu-ERD was attenuated compared to HC. Notably, WS participants exhibited greater mu-ERD for low- than high-probability actions in moderately informative contexts; no modulation was observed in highly informative contexts in either task. In IDD, mu-ERD was not modulated by task or cues predictability. The attenuation and distinct contextual modulation of mu-ERD in WS may reflect anomalies in perception-action mechanisms, potentially linked to impaired simulation of observed actions.

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YNIMG Journal 2025 Journal Article

Visuo-spatial functions mediate the association between cortical thickness of fronto-parietal areas and social processing abilities in congenital atypical development

Viola Oldrati
Elisabetta Ferrari
Niccolò Butti
Chiara Gagliardi
Romina Romaniello
Renato Borgatti
Denis Peruzzo
Cosimo Urgesi

Different theoretical perspectives emphasize the significance of sensorimotor and visuospatial functions in shaping social perception, including theory of mind (ToM) and affect recognition (AR) abilities. This study aimed to investigate where in the brain cortical thickness (CT) predicts social perception, and which cognitive functions mediate such relationship. To these aims, we used a hierarchical analytical plan: Step 1 identified brain areas' CT that correlate with cognitive measures; Step 2 used stepwise regression to predict social perception outcomes (ToM and AR) from brain areas' CT; Step 3 assessed whether cognitive measures mediate the link between CT and social perception outcomes. The results showed that the CT of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; pars triangularis) predicted both ToM and AR, while the CT of the right superior parietal gyrus (SPL) and of the right anterior occipital sulcus (AOcs) predicted only AR. Mediation models unveiled that visuo-constructive abilities and visual attention mediated the relationship between CT in these areas and social perception outcomes. These findings align with the role of the IFG in mentalizing abilities and underscore the involvement of SPL in visuospatial functions, including mental object rotation and spatial perspective-taking, which are essential for advanced social skills; the role of the AOcs in face processing was also highlighted. Importantly, the findings suggest that fronto-parietal areas are indirectly involved in social perception thorough their involvement in visuo-constructive abilities and visual attention.

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YNIMG Journal 2024 Journal Article

Contextual expectations shape the motor coding of movement kinematics during the prediction of observed actions: A TMS study

Valentina Bianco
Alessandra Finisguerra
Giulia D'Argenio
Sara Boscarol
Cosimo Urgesi

Contextual information may shape motor resonance and support intention understanding during observation of incomplete, ambiguous actions. It is unclear, however, whether this effect is contingent upon kinematics ambiguity or contextual information is continuously integrated with kinematics to predict the overarching action intention. Moreover, a differentiation between the motor mapping of the intention suggested by context or kinematics has not been clearly demonstrated. In a first action execution phase, 29 participants were asked to perform reaching-to-grasp movements towards big or small food objects with the intention to eat or to move; electromyography from the First Dorsal Interosseous (FDI) and Abductor Digiti Minimi (ADM) was recorded. Depending on object size, the intentions to eat or to move were differently implemented by a whole-hand or a precision grip kinematics, thus qualifying an action-muscle dissociation. Then, in a following action prediction task, the same participants were asked to observe an actor performing the same actions and to predict his/her intention while motor resonance was assessed for the same muscles. Of note, videos were interrupted at early or late action phases, and actions were embedded in contexts pointing toward an eating or a moving intention, congruently or incongruently with kinematics. We found greater involvement of the FDI or ADM in the execution of precision or whole-hand grips, respectively. Crucially, this pattern of activation was mirrored during observation of the same actions in congruent contexts, but it was cancelled out or reversed in the incongruent ones, either when videos were interrupted at either early or long phases of action deployment. Our results extend previous evidence by showing that contextual information shapes motor resonance not only under conditions of perceptual uncertainty but also when more informative kinematics is available.

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YNICL Journal 2024 Journal Article

Neurorestorative effects of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation on social prediction of adolescents and young adults with congenital cerebellar malformations

Viola Oldrati
Niccolò Butti
Elisabetta Ferrari
Sandra Strazzer
Romina Romaniello
Renato Borgatti
Cosimo Urgesi
Alessandra Finisguerra

BACKGROUND: Converging evidence points to impairments of the predictive function exerted by the cerebellum as one of the causes of the social cognition deficits observed in patients with cerebellar disorders. OBJECTIVE: We tested the neurorestorative effects of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) on the use of contextual expectations to interpret actions occurring in ambiguous sensory sceneries in a sample of adolescents and young adults with congenital, non-progressive cerebellar malformation (CM). METHODS: We administered an action prediction task in which, in an implicit-learning phase, the probability of co-occurrence between actions and contextual elements was manipulated to form either strongly or moderately informative expectations. Subsequently, in a testing phase, we probed the use of these contextual expectations for predicting ambiguous (i.e., temporally occluded) actions. In a sham-controlled, within-subject design, participants received anodic or sham ctDCS during the task. RESULTS: Anodic ctDCS, compared to sham, improved patients' ability to use contextual expectations to predict the unfolding of actions embedded in moderately, but not strongly, informative contexts. CONCLUSIONS: These findings corroborate the role of the cerebellum in using previously learned contextual associations to predict social events and document the efficacy of ctDCS to boost social prediction in patients with congenital cerebellar malformation. The study encourages the further exploration of ctDCS as a neurorestorative tool for the neurorehabilitation of social cognition abilities in neurological, neuropsychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders featured by macro- or micro-structural alterations of the cerebellum.

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YNIMG Journal 2018 Journal Article

Contextualizing action observation in the predictive brain: Causal contributions of prefrontal and middle temporal areas

Lucia Amoruso
Alessandra Finisguerra
Cosimo Urgesi

Context facilitates the recognition of forthcoming actions by pointing to which intention is likely to drive them. This intention is thought to be estimated in a ventral pathway linking MTG with frontal regions and to further impact on the implementation of sensory predictions within the action observation network (AON). Additionally, when conflicting intentions are estimated from context, the DLPFC may bias action selection. However, direct evidence for the contribution of these areas to context-embedded action representations in the AON is still lacking. Here, we used a perturb-and-measure TMS-approach to disrupt neural activity, separately in MTG and DLPFC and subsequently measure cortico-spinal excitability while observing actions embedded in congruent, incongruent or ambiguous contexts. Context congruency was manipulated in terms of compatibility between observed kinematics and the action goal suggested by the ensemble of objects depicted in the environment. In the control session (vertex), we found an early facilitation and later inhibition for kinematics embedded in congruent and incongruent contexts, respectively. MTG stimulation altered the differential modulation of M1 response to congruent vs. incongruent contexts, suggesting this area specifies prior representations about appropriate object graspability. Interestingly, all effects were abolished after DLPFC stimulation highlighting its critical role in broader contextual modulation of the AON activity.

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YNIMG Journal 2016 Journal Article

Contextual modulation of motor resonance during the observation of everyday actions

Lucia Amoruso
Cosimo Urgesi

Neuroimaging studies on action observation suggest that context plays a key role in coding high-level components of motor behavior, including the short-term and the end-goal of an action. However, little is known about the possible role of context in shaping lower-levels of action processing such as reading action kinematics and simulating muscular activity. Here, we combined single-pulse TMS and motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) recording to explore whether top-down contextual information is capable of modulating low-level motor representations. We recorded MEPs from FDI and FCR muscles while participants watched videos about everyday actions embedded in congruent, incongruent or ambiguous contexts. Videos were interrupted before action ending, and participants were requested to predict the course of the observed action. A contextual modulation of corticospinal excitability was observed only for the FDI muscle, which is specifically involved in the execution of reaching-to-grasping movements, and whose corticospinal pathway is influenced by the observation of the very same movements. This modulation was reflected in a selective decrease of corticospinal excitability during the observation of actions embedded in incongruent as compared to congruent and ambiguous contexts. These findings indicate that motor resonance is not an entirely automatic process, but it can be modulated by high-level contextual representations.

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YNIMG Journal 2016 Journal Article

Tell it to a child! A brain stimulation study of the role of left inferior frontal gyrus in emotion regulation during storytelling

Cosimo Urgesi
Alan D.A. Mattiassi
Tania Buiatti
Andrea Marini

In everyday life we need to continuously regulate our emotional responses according to their social context. Strategies of emotion regulation allow individuals to control time, intensity, nature and expression of emotional responses to environmental stimuli. The left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) is involved in the cognitive control of the selection of semantic content. We hypothesized that it might also be involved in the regulation of emotional feelings and expressions. We applied continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) over LIFG or a control site before a newly-developed ecological regulation task that required participants to produce storytelling of pictures with negative or neutral valence to either a peer (unregulated condition) or a child (regulated condition). Linguistic, expressive, and physiological responses were analyzed in order to assess the effects of LIFG-cTBS on emotion regulation. Results showed that the emotion regulation context modulated the emotional content of narrative productions, but not the physiologic orienting response or the early expressive behavior to negative stimuli. Furthermore, LIFG-cTBS disrupted the text-level structuring of negative picture storytelling and the early cardiac and muscular response to negative pictures; however, it did not affect the contextual emotional regulation of storytelling. These results may suggest that LIFG is involved in the initial detection of the affective arousal of emotional stimuli.

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YNIMG Journal 2005 Journal Article

Motor facilitation of the human cortico-spinal system during observation of bio-mechanically impossible movements

Michela Romani
Paola Cesari
Cosimo Urgesi
Stefano Facchini
Salvatore Maria Aglioti

Neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies in the human and the monkey brain indicate that links between action observation and execution are much tighter than previously believed. Indeed, the mere observation of movements performed by other individuals brings about a clear increase in activity in specific fronto-parietal neural networks (mirror system). Here, we report a series of four single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation studies of the motor system, which show that observation of index and little finger movements brings about a facilitation of potentials recorded from muscles that would be involved in the actual execution of the observed action. Remarkably, however, a clear representational selectivity was found also during observation of bio-mechanically impossible index or little finger movements. Thus, in movement observation tasks, the human cortico-spinal system reacts similarly to the vision of bio-mechanically possible and impossible movements but it is able to detect which muscle would be involved in the actual execution of the observed movement. Importantly, this system may be more related to coding body part movements than precisely simulating their execution.

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