Valentina Mancini joined the DIP lab in 2018 as a research assistant involved in the 22q11DS longitudinal project. During this first period, she mainly focused on brain morphology to explore how neurodevelopmental trajectories of subcortical brain structures differ between patients with the microdeletion and healthy controls, and their correlation with the emergence of psychotic symptoms.

She is currently a PhD candidate at the Lemanic Neuroscience Doctoral School, co-supervised by Prof Stephan Eliez and Prof Christoph Michel. The main objective of her PhD project is to understand whether an unbalance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters contributes to the risk of developing psychotic disorders in 22q11DS. She will combine high-density EEG and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) to investigate high-frequency neural oscillations and neurometabolite concentration throughout development. In addition to neuroimaging techniques, she is interested in how personalized transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can entrain the oscillatory neural response underlying executive functions such as working memory in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Valentina studied Medicine at Sapienza University in Rome where she was an intern student in the Department of Human Neurosciences. She developed an interest in somatic hallucinations in neurological disorders, and she gained experience in non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to treat patients with refractory migraine and psychiatric comorbidities. Her MD thesis focused on transient loss of consciousness in migraine patients and the pathophysiological overlap between these two conditions.

Publications

Cantonas LM, Mancini V, Rihs TA, Rochas V, Schneider M, Eliez, S Michel CM, Abnormal Auditory Processing and Underlying Structural Changes in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Volume 47, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 189–196, https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa104

Delavari F, Sandini C, Zöller D, Mancini V, Bortolin K, Schneider M, Van De Ville D, Eliez S. Dysmaturation observed as altered hippocampal functional connectivity at rest is associated with the emergence of positive psychotic symptoms in patients with 22q11 deletion syndrome. Biological Psychiatry, January 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.12.033

Bagautdinova J, Zöller D, Schaer M, Padula MC, Mancini V, Schneider M, Eliez S, Altered cortical thickness development in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and association with psychotic symptoms MedRxiv. November 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.03.20221978

Mastria G, Mancini V*, Di Cesare M, Puma M, Alessiani M, Petolicchio B, Viganò A, M, Di Piero V. Prevalence and characteristics of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in adult migraineurs: Perspectives from a tertiary referral headache unit. Cephalalgia. November 2020. doi:10.1177/0333102420968245

Mancini  V, Zöller D, Schneider M, Schaer M, Eliez S. “Abnormal development and dysconnectivity of distinct thalamic nuclei in patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome experiencing auditory hallucinations”. Biological Psychiatry (2020), doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.04.015.

Mancini  V, Sandini C, Padula MC, Zöller D, Schneider M, Schaer M, Eliez S. “Positive psychotic symptoms are associated with divergent developmental trajectories of hippocampal volume during late adolescence in patients with 22q11DS”. Mol Psychiatry 25, 2844–2859 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0443-z

Viganò  A, Mancini V, Mastria G, M, Di Piero V. “Is it useful to do a taxonomy of complex visual symptoms in migraine?”. Headache (2020), doi:10.1111/head.13813.

Mastria  G, Mancini  V, Viganò A, De Sanctis R, Letteri  F, Toscano  M,  Di  Piero  V. “An  aura-mimic Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in a patient with temporal-occipital glioblastoma”. Neurocase (2019), 24(5-6): 242-244, doi:10.1080/13554794.2018.1562079.

Mancini V, Mastria G, Frantellizzi  V, Troiani P,  Zampatti S, Carboni S, Giardina E, Campopiano R, Gambardella S, Turchi  F, Petolicchio B, Toscano M, Liberatore  M, Viganò  A, Di Piero V. “A case report of migrainous infarction in a patient with Sporadic Hemiplegic Migraine and Cystic Fibrosis: a 99mTc-HMPAO brain SPECT study”. Headache (2019), 59(2): 253-258, doi: 10.1111/head.1347.

Toscano M, Viganò, A, Rea A, Verzina A, Sasso D'Elia T, Puledda F, Longo L, Mancini V, Ruggiero M, Jannini TB, Giuliani G, Albino F, Altieri M, Vicenzini E, Fattapposta F, Pauri F, Giacomini P,  Ruoppolo G, Di Piero V. “Sapienza GLObal Bedside Evaluation of Swallowing after Stroke The GLOBE-3S study”. European Journal of Neurology (2018), 26(4): 596-692, doi:10.1111/ene.13862.

Mancini  V, Mastria  G, Frantellizzi   V, Petsas  N, Sollaku  S, Viganò  A, Liberatore  M, and Di  Piero  V, “Alice In Wonderland Syndrome associated to aripriprazole administration: a 99mTc-HMPAO brain SPECT study”. European Neurology (2018) 79(5-6): 333-334, doi:10.1159/00490902.

Mastria G, Mancini V, Viganò A, and Di Piero V, “Alice in Wonderland Syndrome: A Clinical and Pathophysiological Review,” BioMed Research International (2017), doi:10.1155/2016/8243145.