Ilaria Colombi graduated in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Genova (Italy) in September 2012, with a thesis about Effects of antiepileptic drugs on hippocampal neurons coupled to micro-electrode arrays.In March 2015, she got the Master Degree in Bioengineering (110/110, with worthiness of publication), at the University of Genova, with a thesis about circadian rhythm monitoring and manipulation in neural assemblies. She obtained her PhD in Neuroscience in February 2018 under the supervision of Dr. Michela Chiappalone at the Italian Institute of Technology . Her PhD thesis was awarded the Massimo Grattarola Prize, conferred by the Gruppo Nazionale di Bioingegneria. She currently has a Post-Doctoral fellow position in Brain Development and Disease group lead by Dr. Laura Cancedda.
Her research interests include neuropharmacological experiments using Micro-Electrode Arrays (MEAs) in healthy and pathological in vitro neuronal models (e.g., cell cultures and brain slices), as well as the development of algorithms for multichannel data analysis.
Since 2022, she has also been responsible for the analysis of in vivo calcium imaging data, particularly in the context of spatial coding — the process by which the brain represents the spatial environment. Her work focuses on identifying and characterizing place cells, a specific type of hippocampal neuron that becomes active when an animal is in, or is thinking about, a particular location in its environment. These studies aim to better understand how neural circuits encode spatial information and how this encoding may be altered in pathological conditions or influenced by pharmacological treatments.
