In the field of psychosomatic medicine and clinical neuroscience, the projects of our research group aim to:

a) Identify and characterize interindividual differences as a function of the affective inclinations and of brain activity of healthy subjects aa well as patients with clinically unexplained symptoms and / or somatic functional symptoms using functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques;

b) Develop tools (questionnaires) for the clinical screening of interindividual differences according to affective inclinations;

c) Evaluate the effectiveness of specific psychotherapeutic interventions adapted to (a) and (b).

These studies are carried out in collaboration with the University of Bari, Italy (Pr Alessandro Bertolino), the University of Milan, Italy (Pr EM Biganzoli), the Istituto di Psicoterapia Post-Razionalista (IPRA), Rome, Italy, the Interfaculty Center in Affective Sciences (Prof. Patrik Vuilleumier and Pr. David Sander) and Department of Medicine (Cardiology : Prof. François Mach).

In the area of mindfulness, ongoing projects are exploring the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in the prevention of depressive relapse, stress management in gynecological cancer patients, health professionals and the mechanisms of action of these approaches.

Since 2002, scientific collaboration with Professor Zindel Segal of the University of Toronto and Professor Mark Williams of Oxford University; since 2014 with Professor Willem Kuyken, University of Oxford, within the International Clinical Research Network of Mindfulness Interventions.