Dr Emanuela de Falco PhD

Dr Emanuela De Falco

School of Mathematics
Honorary Research Fellow

Contact details

Email
e.defalco@bham.ac.uk
Address
Watson Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Emanuela De Falco is a research scientist working at the intersection of neuroscience, data science and mathematical modelling. Her work focuses on extracting meaningful insights from complex neural data to improve our understanding of brain function and neurological conditions.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Bioengineering, University of Leicester, 2017
  • MSc in Physics, University of Naples Federico II, 2013
  • BSc in Physics, University of Naples Federico II, 2010

Biography

Emanuela holds a BSc and MSc in Physics from the University of Naples Federico II and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Leicester, completed under the supervision of Professor Quian Quiroga. Her doctoral research investigated memory and conceptual associations in the human brain using electrophysiological recordings from patients with epilepsy.

Her postdoctoral research focused on understanding how patterns of neural activity give rise to cognition and behaviour. In Professor Lapish’s group at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), she investigated neuronal population dynamics underlying complex behaviours in rodent models. She later joined Professor Blanke’s group at EPFL in Switzerland, where she extended this work to human neuroscience, studying cognition and neurological dysfunction across healthy and clinical populations through a combination of neural recordings and experimental approaches including virtual reality and robotics.

Emanuela is currently a Senior Research Scientist at Neuronostics and an Honorary Research Fellow at University of Birmingham. Her current research focuses on developing computational and quantitative methods to extract clinically meaningful information from complex neural data, with the aim of translating advances in neuroscience into clinical applications.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Charles, R, De Falco, E, Galizia, E, Martin-Lopez, D, Meiklejohn, K, Allen, D, Staniaszek, LE, Price, C, Georgiou, S, Bagary, M, Khalsa, S, Lawthom, C, Shankar, R, Terry, JR & Woldman, W 2026, 'Prioritising follow-up for people with suspected epilepsy using a digital EEG biomarker', Epilepsy & Behavior, vol. 177, 110925. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2026.110925

Cao, R, Wang, J, Lin, C, De Falco, E, Peter, A, Rey, HG, Brunner, P, Willie, JT, DiCarlo, JJ, Todorov, A, Rutishauser, U, Li, X, Brandmeir, NJ & Wang, S 2025, 'Feature-based encoding of face identity by single neurons in the human amygdala and hippocampus', Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 9, no. 9, pp. 1959-1974. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02218-1

Moon, HJ, Albert, L, De Falco, E, Tasu, C, Gauthier, B, Park, HD & Blanke, O 2024, 'Changes in spatial self-consciousness elicit grid cell-like representation in the entorhinal cortex', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 121, no. 12, e2315758121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2315758121

White, SM, Morningstar, MD, De Falco, E, Linsenbardt, DN, Ma, B, Parks, MA, Czachowski, CL & Lapish, CC 2024, 'Impulsive Choices Emerge When the Anterior Cingulate Cortex Fails to Encode Deliberative Strategies', eNeuro, vol. 11, no. 11, ENEURO.0379-24.2024. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0379-24.2024

Beanato, E, Moon, HJ, Windel, F, Vassiliadis, P, Wessel, MJ, Popa, T, Pauline, M, Neufeld, E, De Falco, E, Gauthier, B, Steiner, M, Blanke, O & Hummel, FC 2024, 'Noninvasive modulation of the hippocampal-entorhinal complex during spatial navigation in humans', Science Advances, vol. 10, no. 44, eado4103. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado4103

De Falco, E, Solcà, M, Bernasconi, F, Babo-Rebelo, M, Young, N, Sammartino, F, Tallon-Baudry, C, Navarro, V, Rezai, AR, Krishna, V & Blanke, O 2024, 'Single neurons in the thalamus and subthalamic nucleus process cardiac and respiratory signals in humans', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 121, no. 11, e2316365121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316365121

Moon, HJ, Wu, HP, De Falco, E & Blanke, O 2023, 'Physical Body Orientation Impacts Virtual Navigation Experience and Performance', eNeuro, vol. 10, no. 11, ENEURO.0218-23.2023. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0218-23.2023

De Falco, E, White, SM, Morningstar, MD, Ma, B, Nkurunziza, LT, Ahmed-Dilibe, A, Wellman, CL & Lapish, CC 2021, 'Impaired cognitive flexibility and heightened urgency are associated with increased alcohol consumption in rodent models of excessive drinking', Addiction biology, vol. 26, no. 5, e13004. https://doi.org/10.1111/adb.13004

Gastaldi, C, Schwalger, T, de Falco, E, Quiroga, RQ & Gerstner, W 2021, 'When shared concept cells support associations: Theory of overlapping memory engrams', PLoS Computational Biology, vol. 17, no. 12, e1009691. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009691

De Falco, E, An, L, Sun, N, Roebuck, AJ, Greba, Q, Lapish, CC & Howland, JG 2019, 'The rat medial prefrontal cortex exhibits flexible neural activity states during the performance of an odor span task', eNeuro, vol. 6, no. 2, e0424-18.2019. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0424-18.2019

Rey, HG, De Falco, E, Ison, MJ, Valentin, A, Alarcon, G, Selway, R, Richardson, MP & Quian Quiroga, R 2018, 'Encoding of long-term associations through neural unitization in the human medial temporal lobe', Nature Communications, vol. 9, no. 1, 4372. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06870-2

De Falco, E, Ison, MJ, Fried, I & Quian Quiroga, R 2016, 'Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain', Nature Communications, vol. 7, 13408. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13408