Maurizio Corbetta, MD

Maurizio Corbetta, M.D., the Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology, is internationally known for his multidisciplinary research on the neural basis of human cognition and the neurological mechanisms underlying stroke recovery.

Corbetta’s medical training began in Italy. He received his medical degree from the University of Pavia in 1985 and then completed his postdoctoral and residency training at the University of Verona. He then came to Washington University in St. Louis in 1992 for a fellowship in neuro-imaging and cognitive neuroscience, and rounded out his training with an internship and residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He joined the faculty as an assistant professor of neurology in 1996, was named head of stroke and brain injury rehabilitation in 2002, and three years later became a professor in three departments: Neurology, Radiology, and Anatomy and Neurobiology.

Corbetta has authored 67 peer-reviewed publications, many in elite scientific journals. The Corbetta lab has made landmark contributions toward understanding the neuronal bases of attention, specifically its influence on visual cortex, links with oculomotor mechanisms, and cortical organization. His clinical research focuses on how physical reorganization of the brain relates to behavioral recovery after stroke. He has conducted pioneering investigations on stroke-related language disorders. In addition, his work on stroke-related attention deficit disorders has provided some of the first direct evidence that brain injury can cause functional changes in brain regions far from the site of the actual injury, which are related to behavioral impairment and recovery of function.

He is a member of nine professional societies and has received many honors for his work, including the J.S. McDonnell Foundation Award in Cognitive Sciences, the Marie Curie Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience from the European Union, and the Norman Geschwind Award in Behavioral Neurology from the Academy of Neurology.