My research explores the neurophysiological correlates of social and moral behavior, emotional processing, and interoception. Together with my collaborators, I have investigated face categorization (Ponsi et al., 2015, 2017a), social and moral decision-making in interactive games (Ponsi et al., 2017b, 2019, 2021; Feruglio et al., 2022, 2023), and gaze-following behavior (Ponsi et al., 2024). More recently, my work has examined the effects of dopaminergic augmentation on the sense of agency and moral behavior in Parkinson’s disease (Ponsi, Villa, et al., 2026). My current research focuses on the neural mechanisms of moral decision-making, the effects of brain lesions on interoception, and how prosocial and egoistic choices shape the implicit sense of agency. I am also interested in how prediction-based neural activity contributes to processing expected and unexpected outcomes of social interactions, and how motivation and reward shape behavior. My research combines behavioral approaches with a range of neurophysiological and psychophysiological methods, including:
- Electroencephalography (EEG), including event-related potentials (ERPs) and time–frequency analysis (TFA)
- Electrogastrography (EGG)
- Surface electromyography (sEMG)
- Functional infrared thermal imaging (fITI)
- Autonomic measures, including electrodermal activity (skin conductance), heart rate, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate
- Eye-tracking measures, including gaze position, eye movements, and pupil dilation
- Brain lesion analysis and voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping
