Ilaria Bertocchi received a master’s degree in Molecular Biotechnology (2006) and a PhD in Pharmacology (2011) at the University of Torino, with a study focused on the role of the Y1 receptor (Y1R) for neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the limbic system.
In 2010, Ilaria spent her last months as a PhD student and 5 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, under the supervision of Prof. Sprengel in the Department of Molecular Neurobiology of Peter Seeburg. At the MPI she carried out high-level projects for creation, validation, behavioral and molecular characterization of mouse models of ASD, epilepsy and other neurological diseases.
In 2016, Ilaria joined the Neuroscience Institute Cavalieri Ottolenghi as part of the Neuropsychopharmacology group. In 2023, after the sudden death of the PI Prof. Carola Eva, Ilaria leads the laboratory.
Research focus
The main line of research has been the study of the role of Y1R for NPY in the limbic system. This contributed to the publication of a seminal work using mice with the conditional knock-out for Y1R (Bertocchi et al., PNAS 2011). More recently, this line of research has revealed the crucial implication of NPYergic transmission in sex-dependent metabolic changes (Eva et al., 2020; Bertocchi et al., 2020) and in the control of cognitive functions and neuronal plasticity (Bertocchi et al., 2021). A further line of research focuses on the role of NMDA receptors in synaptic plasticity and cognitive functions (Hasan et al., 2013; Hasan et al., 2019; Bertocchi et al., 2023; Carretero-Guillén et al., 2024).
Current line of research is focused on studying the role of neuronal plasticity and excitation/inhibition balance in a model of GRIN-related developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE) (Bertocchi et al., 2021; Bertocchi et al. 2023; Bertocchi et al. 2024). In addition, we have recently acquired the mouse model of Fragile X Syndrome and at least 3 works using the Fmr1KO mice are almost at the end of preparation.
