When research meets practice: from human brain connections toward a neuroscientific approach to clinical psychology. Current status and future prospects.

One of the major challenges of modern neuroscience is to define the complex pattern of neural connections that underlie cognition and behaviour. Human brain connectome is a modern approach to explain the complex architecture of mind. Normal brain functions are characterized by continuous and significant network evolution, as well us, brain lesions or dysfunctions may provoke dramatic changes in these neural networks. The aim of clinical neuroscience research, actually, is to study cortico-subcortical brain structure involves in cognitive and affective functions by multimodal brain imaging methods and neuropsychological assessment both in normal subjects and patients. From these considerations, the symposium focuses on integration between neuroscience and clinical psychology. Specifically, in the first paper from the University of Padua, a novel approach to clinical severity assessment will be presented. In particular the possibility to evaluate the severity of a psychopathological symptom in a objective way through fMRI and ECG measures will be presented. In the second paper, the group from Pisa will show how clinical neuropsychology is crucial for the differential diagnosis in idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH). The classical behavioural tasks seem to discriminate functioning of the interhemispheric processing in iNPH patients who typically have squeezing and stretching of the callosal fibers. The study proposed by University Hospital of Pisa try to approach diagnosis in DOC with the contribution of a longitudinal single-case fMRI investigation. The last contribution from University of Messina, highlights how in clinical practice, the multimodal approach – clinical neuropsychology, nTMS and DTI fiber tracking - may be contributed to show structural and functional reorganization of neural networks in patients with brain tumors involving perisylvian areas of the left hemisphere, in order to optimize clinical decision making for specific patient.