The Department of Human Neurosciences, established in 1983 and renamed in 2018, is an interdisciplinary department that brings together professors and researchers from different scientific-disciplinary areas, with the aim of developing a shared educational and research activity, both basic and clinical.

Its main headquarters is located within the University City, in the neoclassical building at Viale dell’Università 30. The department’s satellite offices are situated within the hospital complex of Policlinico Umberto I (Neurosurgery), in University City (Clinical Psychology), and at the ‘Giovanni Bollea’ Institute on Via dei Sabelli (Child Neuropsychiatry). Since 2021, the department has been directed by Prof. Giovanni Fabbrini. The department participates in the teaching activities coordinated by the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy and Medicine and Dentistry at Sapienza University of Rome.

The department covers the following scientific-disciplinary sectors: MED/25, MED/26, MED/27, MED/37, MED/39, MED/43, MED/48 (Medical Sciences Area); M/PSI-01 and M/PSI-08 (Psychological Sciences Area); BIO/09, BIO/13 (Biological Sciences Area); FIS/07 (Physical Sciences Area). The disciplinary affiliation of faculty members ensures the recognition of expertise within the department, allowing for comparability and collaboration in intra-departmental scientific activities, as well as partnerships with other national and international research centers. These collaborations are evidenced by numerous joint publications with esteemed research institutions. Additionally, department members have organized numerous scientific events of national and international significance.

The Department of Human Neurosciences, formerly known as the Department of Neurological Sciences and later as the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, boasts a long and distinguished tradition, beginning with the innovative efforts of two luminaries of Italian psychiatry: Ezio Sciamanna and Augusto Tamburini. During his tenure, Sciamanna worked to make the psychiatric clinic, originally located at Via dei Penitenzieri 13, independent from the Santa Maria della Pietà asylum, and is therefore considered the true founder of the Academic Psychiatric Clinic in 1883. His successor, Tamburini, was the visionary behind relocating the clinic to Via dell’Università 30, within the University City complex, where it remains today.

A few years later, psychiatry was merged with neurology (Nervous Diseases) by ministerial decree, forming a new structure named the Clinic for Nervous and Mental Diseases. The chair was assigned to Giovanni Mingazzini, who shaped the new clinic with a strong neuropathological focus. Mingazzini was succeeded by Sante De Sanctis, a professor of psychology and one of the pioneers of child psychology and developmental psychopathology. He founded the current Institute of Psychology and the division dedicated to minors, Reparto III, the first Italian department of Child Neuropsychiatry.

Today, the Child Neuropsychiatry division is located near the University City, in Via dei Sabelli 108, thanks to the efforts of child psychiatrist Giovanni Bollea, followed in the institute’s leadership by Pietro Benedetti and later Gabriel Levi. On the occasion of the centenary of the establishment of the Clinic for Nervous and Mental Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, in collaboration with the Department of Human Neurosciences, presented the results of a retrospective observational study on medical records of children and adolescents hospitalized between 1930 and 1948, highlighting significant progress in diagnosing and treating childhood and adolescent psychiatric and neurological disorders.

In the late 1930s, the clinic gained international recognition due to the success and rapid adoption of electroconvulsive therapy (electroshock), invented, tested, and applied to both adults and minors by its new director, Ugo Cerletti, alongside his research team, which included Lucio Bini and Federico Accornero. Over the years, the Roman clinic has been home to great masters such as Bruno Callieri and Mario Gozzano, who educated generations of students.

During the 20th century, the department’s activities progressively diversified into various fields. In 1962, Beniamino Guidetti was appointed assistant and, the following year, assumed leadership of the neurosurgery chair. Psychiatry, which until then had been taught in Italy as a "complementary" subject separate from neurology, was formally recognized and regulated by Law No. 238 of April 29, 1976. Among the first full professors of Clinical Psychiatry—now a mandatory subject—was Giancarlo Reda, who, in the 1969-70 academic year, continued a clinical and "integrated" approach, open to different schools of thought and attentive to phenomenological aspects. During this period, the Roman School of Psychopathology and existential phenomenology gained prominence, led by Luigi Frighi, fostering a vibrant renewal of the field.

Gianfranco Ricci, a pioneer in Neurophysiopathology, was the first to establish the Special School for Neurophysiopathology Technicians and, in the 1990s, became director of the specialization school. In the 1970s and 1980s, prominent scholars at the department included Professors Cornelio Fazio, Alessandro Agnoli, Cesare Fieschi, Mario Manfredi, Gian Luigi Lenzi, and Neri Accornero in Neurology; Gianfranco Ricci in Neurophysiopathology; Gaspare Vella and Paolo Pancheri in Psychiatry; and Giampaolo Cantore and Aldo Fortuna in Neurosurgery.

The department further expanded in 1990 with the introduction of Neuroradiology (Prof. Luigi Bozzao). Since its establishment in 1983, the department has been led by Professors Carlo Cavallotti, Giampaolo Cantore, Guido Palladini, Cesare Fieschi, Massimiliano Prencipe, Giorgio Cruccu, and Alfredo Berardelli. Since 2021, the department has been directed by Giovanni Fabbrini. Child Neuropsychiatry was part of the Department of Pediatrics and Child Neuropsychiatry until 2017, when it merged into the Department of Human Neurosciences.

Francesco Pisani coordinates clinical research activities, while Bruno Oliviero oversees the Specialization School. Over the past two decades, Sapienza’s neurological scientific community has made dynamic advancements, exploring new diagnostic, clinical, and therapeutic approaches to various neurological diseases. Evidence of these recent scientific breakthroughs can be found in prestigious national and international journals and publications. The research conducted within the Department of Human Neurosciences continues to provide extraordinary opportunities for advancing knowledge.