Research & Interest

Dr. Iacoboni is a neurologist and neuroscientist expert in brain imaging and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. His main research interests are the neural basis of sensory-motor integration, imitation and social cognition in humans. In particular, Dr. Iacoboni investigates the human mirror neuron system and its role in social behavior and its disorders. His research has focused on the role of the human mirror neuron system in imitation, a fundamental form of learning and non-verbal communication during development, and of empathy, the ability to understand the feelings of other people. He suggests that the human mirror neuron system is a bio-marker of social behavior. He plans to measure the effectiveness of intervention strategies for HIV prevention by looking at the activity of the mirror neuron system as measured by brain imaging.

Selected Publications

• Iacoboni M, Woods RP, Brass M, Bekkering H, Mazziotta JC, and Rizzolatti G, "Cortical mechanisms of human imitation." Science 286:2526-8 (1999)

• Iacoboni M, Koski L, Brass M, Bekkering H, Woods RP, Dubeau M-C, Mazziotta JC, and Rizzolatti G. "Re-afferent copies of imitated actions in the right superior temporal cortex." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 98:13995-9 (2001)

• Carr L, Iacoboni M, Dubeau M-C, Mazziotta JC, and Lenzi GL. "Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas." Proceedings of the Nationall Academy of Sciences USA 100: (2003)

• Wilson SM, Saygin AP, Sereno MI, Iacoboni M. "Listening to speech activates motor areas involved in speech production." Nature Neuroscience 7:701-2 (2004)
  Iacoboni M, Molnar-Szakacs I, Gallese V, Buccino G, Mazziotta JC, Rizzolatti G. "Grasping the intentions of others with one's own mirror neuron system." PLoS Biology 3(3): e79 (2005).

• Dapretto M, Davies MS, Pfeifer JH, Scott AA, Sigman M, Bookheimer SY, Iacoboni M. “Understanding Emotions in Others: Mirror Neuron Dysfunction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.” Nature Neuroscience, 9:28-30 (2006).

• Aziz-Zadeh L, Koski L, Zaidel E, Mazziotta JC, Iacoboni M. “Lateralization of the human mirror neuron system.” Journal of Neuroscience 26:2964-2970 (2006).

• Aziz-Zadeh L, Wilson SM, Rizzolatti G, Iacoboni M. “Congruent embodied representations for visually presented actions and linguistic phrases describing actions.” Current Biology 16:1818-1823 (2006).

• Iacoboni M, Dapretto M. “The mirror neuron system and the consequences of its dysfunction”, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7:942-951 (2006).