Camillo Porcaro

The BRAIN Unit Lab at the University of Padua is seeking a doctoral researcher through the China Scholarship Council pathway for the 2027/2028 academic year. The PhD project sits at the intersection of neuroscience, neuroengineering, artificial intelligence and non-linear signal processing . The research environment focuses on advanced analysis of brain activity for clinical and technological applications. One major direction is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and neural signal decoding, including the optimization of motor-imagery classification through Higuchi fractal dimension and related feature-extraction techniques for real-time assistive systems. A second direction examines non-linear dynamics and biomarkers of neurodegenerative and neurological conditions. The work may involve evaluating temporal complexity and resting-state functional dynamics, including HFD and fALFF measures, in Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, stroke and schizophrenia. The lab also investigates TMS-EEG and cortical excitability modeling. This includes applying machine-learning ensembles to pre-stimulus brain states, spectral power and fractal-dimension measures to predict TMS-evoked cortical responses. The doctoral researcher would join a research setting combining computational neuroscience, biomedical engineering, neural data analysis and machine learning under the supervision of Associate Professor Camillo Porcaro.