Research

In the laboratory for the study of human cognition and emotions, CognEmo Lab, we are interested in studying cognitive functions such as perception, attention and memory and their relationship with emotions such as anxiety and fear, which are closely linked to clinical conditions such as anxious and post-traumatic syndromes. 

Therefore, our research has focused on two main lines of study:

1. Cognitive neurosciences
– Neural mechanisms of visual attention.
– Study of episodic and autobiographical memory.
– Neurophysiological mechanisms involved in aversive associative learning.
– Translational research on the mechanisms involved in anxious, depressive and post-traumatic syndromes.

2. Clinical studies
– Clinical and neurophysiological evaluation of patients with posttraumatic syndrome.
– Evaluation of episodic and autobiographical memory in patients with schizophrenia.
– Development and efficacy studies of psychotherapeutic interventions in trauma.
– Development and efficacy studies of dialectical behavioral therapy.

Our goal is to elucidate the psychological and neural processes involved in the interaction between cognitive functions and emotions in order to improve the diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as anxiety, mood and post-traumatic disorders.  

Relevant publications

Miño, V., San Martín, C., Alfaro, F., Miguez, G., Laborda, M, A., Bacigalupo, F., Quezada-Scholz, V. (2023). Meta-analysis of the effect of 5HTTLPR polymorphism in fear learning. Learning and Motivation, 82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2023.101889.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0023969023000206

Bacigalupo, F., & Luck, S. J. (2022). Alpha-band EEG suppression as a neural marker of sustained attentional engagement to conditioned threat stimuli. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience17(12), 1101–1117. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsac029
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9766959/

Bacigalupo, F., & Luck, S. J. (2019). Lateralized Suppression of Alpha-Band EEG Activity As a Mechanism of Target Processing. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience39(5), 900–917. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0183-18.2018
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30523067

Bacigalupo, F., & Luck, S. J. (2018). Event-related potential components as measures of aversive conditioning in humans. Psychophysiology55(4), 10.1111/psyp.13015. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13015
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28949030

Bacigalupo, F., Davis, Z. W., Napan, J., & Royston, A. (2016). Propagating Cortical Waves May Underlie Illusory Motion Perception. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience36(26), 6854–6856. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1167-16.2016
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27358444

Bacigalupo, F., & Luck, S. J. (2015). The allocation of attention and working memory in visual crowding. Journal of cognitive neuroscience27(6), 1180–1193. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00771
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25514655

Oyarzo, C., Bertoglia, P., Avendaño, R., Bacigalupo, F., Escudero, A., Acurio, J., & Escudero, C. (2012). Adverse perinatal outcomes after the February 27th 2010 Chilean earthquake. The journal of maternal-fetal & neonatal medicine25(10), 1868–1873. https://doi.org/10.3109/14767058.2012.678437
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22468878

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