Board of Honors Tutors
Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone
Professor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Director, Berenson-Allen Center for Non-Invansive Brain Stimulation, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
apleone@bidmc.harvard.edu
Would consider serving as:
Thesis Adviser
Thesis Reader
Research Placement
Research Interests:
My research aims at understanding the mechanisms that control brain plasticity across the lifespan to be able to modify them for the subject’s optimal behavioral outcome. In my lab we combine various brain imaging and brain stimulation methodologies to establish a causal relationship and a precise chronometry between regional brain activation and behavior, and uses noninvasive brain stimulation techniques to modulate brain plasticity, suppressing some changes and enhancing others, to gain a clinical benefit and behavioral advantage for a given individual. Such non-invasive approaches can lead to clinically relevant therapeutic effects in neuropsychiatry and neurorehabilitation, and serve as proof-of-principle prior to more invasive neuromodulatory interventions. A major interest of current work aims at translating insights from cognitive neuroscience into clinical interventions. A core focus revolves around the notion that overall health is important for good brain function, but brain function is also a critical contributor to overall health: good physical health contributes to the health of the mind, while brain health in turn helps protect against physical illness.
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