Silvia Guerra obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychology of Personality and Interpersonal Relationships at the University of Padova. Then, in 2015 she graduated in Clinical Psychology at the University of Padova with a thesis entitled: ‘The role of spatial attention on motor resonance and reciprocity’. In 2014 Silvia Guerra joined the Neuroscience of Movement Laboratory (NeMo) at the University of Padua under the supervision of Prof. Umberto Castiello where she investigated the neural underpinnings of action observation in humans using a variety of techniques such as single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (spTMS) combined with motor evoked potential (MEP) recording, eye-tracking and the three-dimensional (3D) kinematical analysis of movement. Since 2017, she has been awarded a research fellowship at NeMo on the kinematical characterization of plants’ movements. And, in 2018, Silvia Guerra started a three-year of PhD program in Psychological science at the University of Padova under the supervision of Professor Umberto Castiello. In 2022 she has been awarded a Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences at the University of Padua with a dissertation entitled “Plants on the move: glimpses on cognitive abilities of plants”. Her main research interest is related to the comprehension of the mechanisms underlying the motor control of plants. And to provide new insights regarding the evolution of the link between perception and action.

selected publications

2024 – Motor cognition in plants: from thought to real experiments

2022 – Kinematic Evidence of Root-to-Shoot Signaling for the Coding of Support Thickness in Pea Plants

2021 – The coding of object thickness in plants: When roots matter

2020 – Speed-accuracy tradeoff in plants