Andrea Stocco
Associate Professor
Advising:
Accepting new graduate students in 2025-2026.
Areas:
Cognition and Perception
Interests: Computational neuroscience, cognitive science, learning, memory
Links:
Research
I am interested in understanding the relationship between cognition and the brain from an information-processing point of view, asking questions such as "What are the fundamental computations needed for this task?" and "How can these computations be implemented within this specific brain circuit?". In particular, I have been interested in the mechanisms that permit intelligent and adaptive behavior, with a particular focus on the interaction between prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia.
Education
University of Trieste (2005)
- June 26, 2024 Andrea Stocco received UW Population Health Initiative Tier 3 pilot grant
- June 5, 2024 Andrea Stocco published research on procedural and episodic memory systems in Computational Brain & Behavior
- November 8, 2022 UW Psychology Faculty Share Reflections on Being First Generation College Students
- September 22, 2022 Andrea Stocco and Colleagues Published in Topics in Cognitive Science
- June 9, 2021 Andrea Stocco just received a Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions Innovation Grant, for a project titled Using Neuro-Computational Modeling to Track Memory Decline.
- March 17, 2021 Chantel Prat is featured in this UW News article about puzzle solving. The cited study was co-authored by Andrea Stocco and Lauren Graham.
- October 21, 2020 Andrea Stocco is quoted in this Gizmodo article about brain implants and the possibility of telekinesis.
- January 9, 2020 Andrea Stocco cited in this Discover article
- August 26, 2019 Congratulations to Andrea Stocco, who was awarded a 2 year research grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
- July 10, 2019 The work of Andrea Stocco, Chantel Prat, and other co-authors, on BrainNet, is the subject of this article in UW News.
- March 4, 2019 Andrea Stocco is quoted in this article in Discover magazine about brain to brain interfaces between humans and rats.
- October 11, 2018 The work of Andrea Stocco and his colleagues, including Chantel Prat, on BrainNet, which allows collaborative problem-solving using direct brain-to-brain communication, is the subject of this MIT Technology Review article.
- January 16, 2018 Andrea Stocco is quoted in a Futurism article about the technology in Black Mirror.
- November 1, 2017 Andrea Stocco is quoted in this article from The Asian Age, about his research on brain to brain communication
- January 19, 2017 The Wall Street Pit posted an article about the next level of Andrea Stocco’s study on brain to brain communication.
- December 12, 2016 Andrea Stocco was recently quoted in a UW Today article about his research on virtual reality experiences expressed through direct brain stimulation.
- October 11, 2016 Sheri Mizumori and Andrea Stocco each participated in the Infinity Box Theater Project’s Thought Experiments on the Question of Being Human.
- June 7, 2016 Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat recently presented at the World Science Festival, in New York City, where they spoke about their Brain 2 Brain Research.
- May 10, 2016 UW Today featured the I-Labs research on brain activity and how it can impact the pace in which adults are able to learn a new language. Chantel Prat is interviewed on the subject and co-authors Brianna Yamasaki, Reina Kluender, and Andrea Stocco are also mentioned.
- February 17, 2016 I-Labs just posted a story about Marissa Pighin, a UW Psychology Honors student, who works in Chantel Prat and Andrea Stocco’s lab. She is working on a better way to treat ADHD.
- February 1, 2016 Geekwire recently posted an article about Andrea Stocco’s work titled "Researchers use brain electrodes to read minds at nearly the speed of thought."
- July 22, 2015 Andrea Stocco is featured in Wired Magazine regarding his brain-to brain communication research.
- May 4, 2015 Andrea Stocco’s research takes the Vulcan Mind Meld to the next level.
- January 7, 2015 It’s not every day that you make the best of the year list, but Chantel Prat and Andrea Stocco did for 2014!
- December 10, 2014 Mind control? I think Andrea Stocco is in the news -
- December 3, 2014 Take Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat, add Brain to Brain Communication and you have an interesting story about telepathy -
- November 26, 2014 Andrea Stocco lands in the files of the The Daily Star’s Quirky Science -
- November 19, 2014 Chantel Prat, Andrea Stocco and Brain to Brain Communication are on everyone's mind!
- November 12, 2014 Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat's work with Brain to Brain communication is everywhere. Check it out!
- November 12, 2014 Chantel Prat (PI) and Andrea Stocco (co-PI) have also been awarded a grant entitled "Training the Mind and Brain: Investigating Individual Differences in the Ability to Learn and Benefit Cognitively from Language Training" by the Office of Naval Research's Cognitive Science of Learning Program. They were awarded $510,000 total costs paid across 3 years.
- November 12, 2014 Andrea Stocco (PI) and Chantel Prat (co-PI) in collaboration with Rajesh Rao (co-PI) from CSE were awarded a prestigious grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation for their work on human brain-to-brain interfacing.
- October 22, 2014 Andrea Stocco co-authored an article in Scientific American -
- October 15, 2014 Chantel Prat and Andrea Stocco show the benefits of being bilingual here -
- October 8, 2014 Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat highlight the advantages of being bilingual -
- September 16, 2014 Our own Andrea Stocco is quoted in this article.
- September 5, 2013 The research of Andrea Stocco, Rajesh Rao, and Chantel Prat on brain to brain human communication has gained enormous attention from news sites such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post since it was first mentioned in UW News.
- August 28, 2013 Andrea Stocco (Research Assistant Professor, Psychology) and Raj Rao (Professor, Computer Science and Engineering) were featured in UW Today on their exploration of human brain-to-brain communication.
- Smith, B. M., Thomasson, M., Yang, Y. C., Sibert, C., & Stocco, A. (2021). When Fear Shrinks the Brain: A Computational Model of the Effects of Posttraumatic Stress on Hippocampal Volume. Topics in Cognitive Science, 13(3), 499-514.
- Stocco, A., Sibert, C., Steine-Hanson, Z., Koh, N., Laird, J. E., Lebiere, C. J., & Rosenbloom, P. (2021). Analysis of the human connectome data supports the notion of a “Common Model of Cognition” for human and human-like intelligence across domains. NeuroImage, 235, 118035.
- Rao, R. P., Stocco, A., Bryan, M., Sarma, D., Youngquist, T. M., Wu, J., & Prat, C. S. (2014). A direct brain-to-brain interface in humans. PloS one, 9(11), e111332.
- Cole, M. W., Laurent, P., & Stocco, A. (2013). Rapid instructed task learning: A new window into the human brain’s unique capacity for flexible cognitive control. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 13(1), 1-22.
- Stocco, A., Lebiere, C., & Anderson, J. R. (2010). Conditional routing of information to the cortex: A model of the basal ganglia’s role in cognitive coordination. Psychological review, 117(2), 541.
- Anderson, J. R., Fincham, J. M., Qin, Y., & Stocco, A. (2008). A central circuit of the mind. Trends in cognitive sciences, 12(4), 136-143.