Doctor Fabrizio Strata is an Associate Professor in the Department of Life Sciences, Health, and Health Professions at Link Campus University in Rome, since April 2024. He earned his Medical degree in the Medical School of the University of Torino and his PhD in Biophysics, with a focus on Developmental Neuroscience, at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste.
During his PhD course, he contributed to discover: i. a new GABA response during brain development; ii. a new pacemaker current responsible for the giant potentials typical of the developing neural circuitry of the hippocampus and iii. an intrinsic oscillation of hippocampal neurons in the theta rhythm frequency, thought to be a key rhythm in memory processes. He then moved back to Torino where he learned to master immunohistochemistry techniques under the supervision of Professor Rossi and thereafter to Nashville, Tennessee, USA, in the lab of Prof. Kaas to work on cortical plasticity after amputation. It was shown that a large scale re-organization of the somatotopic representation of the limbs was recorded at both thalamic and cortical levels. In a second study it was shown for the first time, in contrast to what had been known up to that point, that the sensory afferents from the toes to the gracile nucleus of the brainstem were segregated from each other. From 1999 to 2006 he was first a post-doctoral fellow and then a research associate in the lab of Prof. Merzenich, in the Department of Otolaryngology, at the University of California San Francisco.
He worked on cortical plasticity in two learning paradigms, somatosensory and auditory; contributed to the improvement of a brain implant for recording large scale neuronal activity in the brain; developed a rodent model of cerebral palsy and showed for the first time that a common birthing trauma like asphyxia was affecting the development of the tonotopic representation of the primary auditory cortex; the alterations recorded are very similar to those reported in the auditory cortex of people affected by autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. It was proposed a “two-hit model” for these neurodevelopmental disorders, in which a first hit is represented by the asphyxia birthing trauma which may predispose the newborn to a greater susceptibility to a second postnatal stroke.
In keeping with this model it was suggested that a birth trauma could be caused by a fast clamp of the umbilical cord during birthing which prevents approximately 25% of “oxygenated” placental blood to reach a ‘hypoxic’newborn. From 2007 to 2019 he has been a Researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at the Parma University collaborating on projects related to the physiology of “mirror neurons” and the organization of complex movements in the primary motor cortex. During this time he started to collaborate with Professor Gherardi at the Henri Mondor University Hospital in Créteil, France on a case of macrophagic myofascitis. Between 2011 and 2015 he returned to the University of California in the Department of Fertility Sciences to work on a project on brain development in mice conceived in vitro showing for the first time that mice conceived in vitro and exposed to a “stressful” dietary protocol (low protein during gestation/high fat in the postnatal period) exhibited behavioral alterations and abnormalities in the expression of anxiety and fear-related genes in specific brain structures.
Since 2020 he directed his main interest in metabolic medicine, with special emphasis on the role of glutathione in health, longevity and disease. At the same time he collaborated with Prof. Gobo and his equipe on a sociological study about media coverage and protocols used in early home therapies for the treatment of Sars-CoV-2 disease
(COVID-19).
Curriculum Vitae OFFICE HOURS
The professor is available to receive the students at the end of the lessons. However, the students may also request an appointment by email.