Andrea Pigorini
Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, University of Milan
Builder The claim is about what the hardware does, and the philosophy is left open
Andrea Pigorini is a neurophysiologist at the University of Milan working in the cortical perturbation and consciousness measurement lineage established with Marcello Massimini and Lino Nobili. His foundational 2015 Journal of Neuroscience study used intracranial single-pulse electrical stimulation during non-REM sleep to demonstrate that slow-wave cortical bistability and neuronal OFF-periods actively extinguish causal signal propagation across the human brain.
In October 2026, Pigorini, Simone Russo, Lino Nobili, and Marcello Massimini posted “Simultaneous recordings link intracranial and scalp correlates of somatosensory awareness” (bioRxiv 10.64898/2026.10.03.756393). Recording intracranial stereo-EEG and high-density scalp EEG simultaneously in human patients performing tactile threshold detection, the team linked the non-invasive scalp somatosensory awareness negativity (N140/SAN, 120 to 200 milliseconds) directly to sustained broadband high-frequency activity and phase-locked local field potentials in higher-order insulo-opercular somatosensory cortex.
Pigorini’s profile is Builder, focused on the biophysical calibration of consciousness markers. By bridging invasive depth recordings and non-invasive scalp potentials in the same subjects and trials, his work supplies the ground-truth transfer functions required to validate non-invasive indicators of conscious perception.
Known for. Intracranial stereo-EEG and single-pulse electrical stimulation of human cortex, simultaneous sEEG and high-density scalp EEG of somatosensory awareness, cortical bistability and OFF-periods
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Marcello MassiminiUniversity of MilanThe Perturbational Complexity Index, TMS-EEG measurement of consciousness, disorders of consciousness assessment, sleep slow waves
- Simone RussoDepartment of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, University of MilanSimultaneous intracranial sEEG and high-density scalp EEG recordings of somatosensory awareness, cortical response dynamics
- Lino NobiliDepartment of Neurosciences (DINOGMI), University of Genoa. IRCCS Istituto Giannina GasliniIntracranial stereo-EEG of human sleep, local sleep-wake dissociations, simultaneous intracranial and scalp correlates of conscious awareness
- Vikas AgnihotriIndependent Aerospace and Neuromorphic Systems ResearcherNeuromorphic Satellite Intelligence framework, radiation-induced energy overhead model for spiking neural hardware, constrained on-orbit STDP
- Matt AngleParadromicsFounder and CEO of Paradromics, developer of the Connexus Direct Data Interface high-data-rate brain-computer interface
- Isabella R. BeckettCoauthor of the MaleCNS preprint comparing male and female Drosophila brain connectomes
Andrea Pigorini is listed with the other builders, who hold that the claim is about what the hardware does, and the philosophy is left open. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.