Alessandro Tonacci

Background

About Alessandro Tonacci

I have a background in Biomedical Engineering, with specific expertise on applied neuroscience, psychophysiology, sensory assessment, particularly olfaction, and sensor networks for the assessment of physiological signals, including ECG and skin conductance, and relative signal and data analysis. Over the last years, my research activity was focused on the study of smell as a marker of brain areas functionality and in relationship with cognitive and autonomic features in both healthy subjects and patients, especially children with various neurodevelopmental (Autism Spectrum Disorders: ASD, Rett Syndrome) and eating (including Anorexia Nervosa) disorders. All those works were aimed at detecting parameters of interest for the assessment of brain functioning and behavioral characteristics in a completely non-invasive way, thus often employing wearable unobtrusive sensors for monitoring the psychophysical state of a patient. In this framework, with my research group I was involved in an EU-FP7-funded project, MICHELANGELO, aiming at assessing the feasibility of an approach, based on wearable sensors, for real-time monitoring behavioral changes in children with ASD during a child-therapist interaction at clinics. More recently, my research group was involved in a Regional project, named InGene, funded by the FAS Salute Programme of Tuscany Region, aiming at realizing an informative platform aggregating information coming from various sources, including genetics, biomechanical, physiological, clinical data, in a completely open and interoperable tool, applied to neuromuscular and neurodevelopmental conditions.