Luigi Francesco Saccaro receives the 2025 Alex F. M眉ller Prize
The Faculty of Medicine at the 玉美人传媒 (UNIGE) has awarded the 2025 Alex F. Müller Prize in Clinical Physiopathology to Luigi Saccaro, a doctoral student under the supervision of Prof. Camille Piguet and Prof Dimitri Van De Ville, and member of the Synapsy Centre. In the award-winning article, he highlights a decrease in connectivity between the hippocampus and the sensorimotor cortex in patients with bipolar disorder, as well as in descendants of bipolar patients with an increased risk of developing the disorder. The jury praised the quality of all the work submitted, while indicating that his article was ‘a real favourite’.
Understanding emotional dysregulation
‘This award has a very special meaning for me,’ says Luigi Saccaro, ‘because it highlights the efforts made by Camille Piguet's laboratory, and more broadly by the Synapsy Centre, to build a bridge between neuroscience research and psychiatry.’
Luigi Saccaro's work demonstrates that collaboration between neuroscience and psychiatry is indeed fruitful. Beyond exploring the brain mechanisms linked to bipolar disorder, the award-winning article paves the way for early approaches to better detect and support people at risk.
This award-winning publication is part of Luigi's thesis work, which shows, among other findings, that alterations in connectivity between the hippocampus and the sensorimotor cortex are also involved in emotional dysregulation disorders such as borderline personality disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and that they may signal early vulnerability. These conclusions are supported by Luigi's most recent article, published in Biological Psychiatry: CNNI ().
Between fundamental and clinical research
This award does not mean the end of Luigi Saccaro's thesis work, which he plans to complete in November 2026. He will then complete his residency in psychiatry to obtain the title of FMH psychiatrist. ‘It's essential for me to keep a foot in each field,’ he says, ‘because research feeds my clinical practice, and the latter constantly gives me new ideas to explore.’