Leonardo Bonetti
Websites
Contact information
Colleges
Leonardo Bonetti
PhD
Research Fellow
Investigating brain mechanisms and developing methods for understanding memory and predictive processes, functional brain networks, and elite cognition
I am Research Fellow at the Center for Eudaimonia and Human Fluorishing, University of Oxford and Associate Professor at Center for Music in the Brain (MIB), Aarhus University. My research primarily focuses on the whole-brain mechanisms underlying the perception, encoding and recognition of temporal sequences, with a particular interest in how the brain processes and predicts information that unfolds over time. To this use, I employ a large array of neuroscientific techniques such as magnetoencephalography (MEG), (functional) magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) combined with temporally structured auditory and visual stimuli.
In addition to empirical research, I am deeply involved in developing analytical methods for neuroscience. I co-developed Network Estimation via Source Separation (NESS)—a framework for deriving functional brain networks from neuroimaging data using linear decomposition techniques. NESS includes BROAD-NESS and FREQ-NESS, which are particularly suited for MEG datasets and help reveal frequency-specific and broadband brain networks in task-based contexts.
Another strand of my research investigates the cognitive and personality profiles of elite individuals, such as professional football players, merging psychological testing with AI-driven analysis.
While my current work mostly focuses on healthy populations, a future goal is to apply our paradigms and analytic methods to clinical populations, such as individuals with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, to better understand how neurodegenerative conditions affect temporal cognition and brain network organisation.
Key publications
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Spatiotemporal brain hierarchies of auditory memory recognition and predictive coding.
Journal article
Bonetti L. et al, (2024), Nat Commun, 15
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Age-related neural changes underlying long-term recognition of musical sequences.
Journal article
Bonetti L. et al, (2024), Commun Biol, 7
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Magnetoencephalography recordings reveal the spatiotemporal dynamics of recognition memory for complex versus simple auditory sequences.
Journal article
Fernández-Rubio G. et al, (2022), Commun Biol, 5
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Rapid encoding of musical tones discovered in whole-brain connectivity.
Journal article
Bonetti L. et al, (2021), Neuroimage, 245
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Brain recognition of previously learned versus novel temporal sequences: a differential simultaneous processing.
Journal article
Bonetti L. et al, (2023), Cereb Cortex, 33, 5524 - 5537
Recent publications
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FREQ-NESS Reveals the Dynamic Reconfiguration of Frequency-Resolved Brain Networks During Auditory Stimulation.
Journal article
Rosso M. et al, (2025), Adv Sci (Weinh)
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Multilevel irreversibility reveals higher-order organization of nonequilibrium interactions in human brain dynamics.
Journal article
Nartallo-Kaluarachchi R. et al, (2025), Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 122
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Aging Impacts Basic Auditory and Timing Processes.
Journal article
Criscuolo A. et al, (2025), Eur J Neurosci, 61
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The major-minor mode dichotomy in music perception.
Journal article
Carraturo G. et al, (2025), Phys Life Rev, 52, 80 - 106
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Multilevel irreversibility reveals higher-order organisation of non-equilibrium interactions in human brain dynamics
Journal article
GORIELY A. et al, (2025), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America