Unipd inaugurates Italy’s first OPM-MEG facility
The new Michiel Contarini Complex hosts the Padova Neuroscience Center, the Department of Neuroscience, and SCUP, the University Center for Psychological Clinical Services.
On Wednesday, 29 April, at the Michiel Contarini Complex in Via San Massimo 33, Padua, the inauguration ceremony was held for Italy’s first OPM-MEG facility and the new spaces of the Padova Neuroscience Center.
The event marks an important moment for Italian neuroscience research, with the opening of the first national facility dedicated to magnetoencephalography using optically pumped magnetometers, an advanced technology that will allow researchers at the University of Padua to acquire very high-quality data on communication between neurons, with unprecedented application flexibility. This change in perspective opens up lines of research that until now were not possible, including with populations that are difficult to examine using traditional technologies, such as children and newborns. Applications concern conditions such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, movement disorders, and psychiatric disorders.
In this context, the Department of general Psychology has had, and continues to have, a central role: it is in fact among the founders of the Padova Neuroscience Center, which grew out of a pre-existing body, the Interdepartmental Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. As Professor Maurizio Corbetta underlined during the ceremony, the PNC developed precisely from this experience. This path has led the Department to maintain strong attention and direct involvement in the development of the new facility, also from a technical and training point of view, creating important research opportunities today.
The ceremony was also an opportunity to highlight the Michiel Contarini Complex, which has undergone a significant historical and architectural redevelopment by the University, and to inaugurate a site that will host several strategic bodies. Among these is also SCUP, the University Center for Psychological Clinical Services, with which many members of the Department are affiliated and whose director, Professor Claudio Gentili, spoke during the event.
Andrea Spoto, Director of the DPG, underlines: “The joint opening of the OPM-MEG facility and the new spaces represents a significant step for the Department, which will be able to rely on an infrastructure that is unique in Italy and among the few in the world to develop new lines of research and strengthen interdisciplinary collaborations.”
