Neurological Sciences - Early Career Investigators Section 

The section is dedicated to and driven by Early Career Investigators, with the ultimate goal of unlocking the potential of trainees and young clinician scientists and promoting their vision and innovative thinking. The section offers a set of collections that aims at encouraging and supporting neurology trainees, PhD students and young neurologists in writing and reviewing articles in the field of clinical neuroscience, and to provide a publishing venue for educational and training issues and the rapid dissemination of innovative discoveries and new ideas. 

A key component of the Editorial Board consists of young people selected from applicants from accredited neurological training programmes, the Italian Neurological Society and Neurological Societies from other countries, who will serve as Team Members for a three-year term. Neurological Sciences | Editors (springer.com) (this opens in a new tab)

The types of manuscripts which will be considered include:  

• Short reviews on Key Aspects of Major Neurological Disorders (this opens in a new tab)
• Original Articles on Case Series on Important Areas of Neurology (this opens in a new tab)
• Perspectives on Translational Impact of Emerging Neuroscience Research (this opens in a new tab) 
• Commentaries on Education & Training (this opens in a new tab)   

All authors of a manuscript must be under 40 years of age. Contributions are thoroughly screened by the Editorial Board before being submitted for peer review. Submissions considered of potential interest are sent to at least two reviewers, including a resident or fellow member designated by the Editorial Team and a faculty member reviewing for Neurological Sciences. Neurological Sciences | Submission guidelines (springer.com) (this opens in a new tab)

Team Members

Alessandro Bombaci, MD

 

Alessandro Bombaci is a neurologist and PhD student in Italy at the University of Turin (CRESLA Teamwork [Centro Regionale Esperto per la cura della SLA]), under the guide of Professor Adriano Chiò. His interest in Neuroscience started when he was a student in Medicine and he did a fellowship at the NICO (Neuroscience Institute of Cavaliere Ottolenghi). In 2015 he started his residency in Neurology in Turin and he attended the UCLH MND Neurological Centre in London. He is doing his PhD in Neuroscience focusing his research activities on the study of fluid biomarkers and of transcriptomics in motor neuron diseases and in frontotemporal dementia. He has been the chairperson of the Young Section of the Italian Society of Neurologist (SIN) between 2019 and 2023. He is involved in the ALS and FTD Study Group of the SIN since 2018 and he is the RRFS Representative in the ALS and FTD Panel of the EAN since 2021. He has been involved in many national and international clinical trials in the field of MNDs and FTD. Outside Neurology, Alessandro enjoys cycling, running, hiking in the Alps, playing guitar and exploring Italian boroughs.

Alessia Bianchi, MD, PhD

Alessia Bianchi is a Post-doctoral Clinical Research Fellow at the Queen Square Multiple Sclerosis Centre – University College London (London, UK), where she has been collaborating since 2018 with Prof Olga Ciccarelli, Prof Ahmed Toosy, and Prof Jeremy Chataway. In 2012, she graduated from the University of Perugia under the supervision of Prof Paola Sarchielli and Prof Massimiliano De Filippo. In 2019, she completed her Neurology training at the University of Palermo, where she was involved in clinical and research activities at the Centre for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis and Demyelinating Disorders under the guidance of Prof Giuseppe Salemi and Prof Paolo Ragonese. In 2019, she qualified as a Fellow of the European Board of Neurology, and in 2023, she completed a PhD course in Biomedicine, Neuroscience, and Advanced Diagnostics at the University of Palermo. Her research focuses on the use of advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques and their integration to investigate the biological mechanisms underlying the inflammatory and degenerative processes that characterize multiple sclerosis and other demyelinating diseases. For her work, she has been granted the Società Italiana di Neurologia Award for Gender Medicine and the ECTRIMS-MAGNIMS Research Fellowship.

Fedele Dono, MD

Fedele Dono is a Neurologist at the University Hospital “SS. Annunziata” of “G. D’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara. Since 2013, he is involved in epilepsy research with special interest in the clinical research.  My interests spread from preclinical to clinical aspects of epileptology with a great interests to mechanism leading to autonomic dysfunction in epileptic patients and SUDEP. He is an active member of the Young Epilepsy Section (YES) and  he is responsible of the Social Media and Communication Task Force of the YES Italian section.

Francesco Di Lorenzo, MD, PhD

Francesco Di Lorenzo is a neurologist currently working as clinical researcher at IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome, Italy. He completed his residency at Tor Vergata University in Rome and his PhD at Sussex University, UK. He focused his research on the study of cortical plasticity mechanisms in Dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease and Fronto-Temporal Dementia patients, and other neurodegenerative disorders by the application of novel neurophysiological methods of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) techniques combined also with imaging techniques.  He is also interested in clinical research, such as timely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, through a multidisciplinary approach including neuropsychological testing, CSF biomarkers investigation, and brain imaging.

Tommaso Ercoli, MD, PhD

Tommaso Ercoli is a neurologist at the University Hospital of Sassari, Italy. During medical school, he spent one year in Erlangen, Germany, while completing his medical degree at the University of Cagliari. At the same institution, he completed his training in Neurology and earned his PhD in Neuroscience. In 2019/2020, he was awarded the title of Honorary Clinical Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and in 2023, he obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification (ASN) to function as associate professor of Neurology. His research and clinical interests focus on movement disorders, functional neurological disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.

David García-Azorín, MD, PhD

David García-Azorín is a neurologist currently working at Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid, Spain. His main area of interests are secondary headache detection and characterisation, phenotypic characterisation of other primary headache disorders and currently headache attributed to COVID-19. He completed his PhD regarding the detection of secondary headache in the emergency department at the University of Valladolid, Spain. He is currently member of the Spanish Society of Neurology executive board, as chair of the International Area and the secretary of the UEMS - European Board of Neurology. He is involved in the European Academy of Neurology in the headache panel and neuroinfectious diseases panel. He recently participated in the elaboration of the WHO guidelines for the management of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Francesco Iodice, MD, PhD

Francesco Iodice is an adult neurologist actually working in Rome at “IRCCS San Raffaele Roma”. He graduated and completed his specialization and PhD course at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, under the supervision of P. M. Rossini. Since the start of his educational career he’s been working on several neurophysiological methods for diagnostic and neuromodulation purposes. His research interests include application of neurophysiology in stroke, dementia and neurodegenerative diseases, neurorehabilitation and brain plasticity. Starting from 2017 until 2019 he has been involved as Coordinator of the Young Section of Italian Society Neurology and he was among the founders of “NeuroMAG” a blog dedicated to young neurologists with educational purposes. Besides neurology, his great passions are sport and Africa and he combined these passions by working as a volunteer for the non-governative association Surf4children.

Matthijs van der Meulen, MD, PhD

Matthijs van der Meulen is a neurologist/ neuro-oncologist at Medisch Spectrum Twente, in Enschede, the Netherlands. He studied medicine at the university of Utrecht, and did his residency in neurology at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, both in the Netherlands. In 2021, he obtained his PhD, his thesis was entitled ‘Primary central nervous system lymphoma – diagnostic evaluation, neurocognitive functioning and health related quality of life. In 2021-2022, he did a clinical fellowship in adult neuro-oncology in the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. During this fellowship he did research about treatment of glioma and the methylation profiles of long-term survivors with a glioblastoma. His current research is mainly about brain metastases.

Michele Romoli, MD, PhD, FEBN

Michele Romoli is a neurologist working at Bufalini Hospital in Cesena, Italy. He completed medical and specialty training at the University of Perugia, Italy, under the supervision of Prof. P. Calabresi. He then completed a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Perugia, under the supervision of Prof. C. Costa, and a research fellowship at the Centre for the Prevention of Stroke and Dementia of the University of Oxford, UK, under the mentoring of Prof. P Rothwell. He also completed a Master in Critical care neurophysiology at the University of Firenze. His interest lies in emergency and acute neurology, methodology, applied statistics and data science. His research focus has moved to meta-analytic methods and into neuroimaging-neurophysiology investigations in the acute setting, including stroke and status epilepticus.  He was the founder of the EduNet, the SIN-giovani educational network, and he is currently the elected representative of the Italian Stroke Association Young section. Dr. Romoli serves in the guideline production group of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN), the European Stroke Organization (ESO), and the methodology study group of the Italian Stroke Association. In 2023 he obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification (ASN) for associate professor of neurology post.

Section Editors

A. Berardelli, Rome, Italy

F. Tagliavini, Milan, Italy