Alvaro Pascual-Leone, M.D., Ph.D.
Title Professor of Neurology Institution Hebrew Rehabilitation Center Address Beth Israel Deaconess Med Ctr Neurology, KS 454 330 Brookline Ave Boston MA 02215
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Affiliation

Overview
At the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation that I direct we have three distinct missions: (1) Research explores brain-behavior relations, brain plasticity and its modulation, employing different noninvasive brain stimulation techniques combined with careful task design, electroencephalography, and functional brain imaging. (2) Educational efforts feature an intensive course in noninvasive brain stimulation offered three times per year as part of Harvard’s Continuing Medical Education program. (3) Clinical work includes diagnostic studies therapeutic applications of noninvasive brain stimulation for treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.
My work has been fundamental in establishing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a tool capable of revealing causal brain-behavior relations and the timing of information flow and dynamic adaptation in neural networks. My laboratory has contributed to increasing the knowledge about the mechanisms of action and improving the methodology of TMS and its combination with other neurophysiologic and brain imaging methods. For example we developed a method to interface TMS with EEG to allow the study of the effects of brain stimulation on ongoing brain activity and ultimately enable the use of EEG activity as a means of controlling the stimulation applied, and a novel methodology to introduce TMS into the MRI scanner in order to be able to study the neural activity evoked by TMS and thus correlate behavioral with underlying neurophysiologic effects.
I was the first to show that trains of repetitive TMS can be reliably and safely disrupt the activity of a given brain region transiently and thus provide insights about the causality of brain activity in behavior. I demonstrated the rapid plasticity of motor cortical outputs during motor learning, the requirement of visual cortex input for tactile Braille reading in the blind, the causal role of primary visual cortex and the dynamics of interhemipheric compensatory processes during mental imagery, and the need for fast back-projections in visual awareness tasks. Moreover, coupling TMS with physiologic and imaging techniques, I showed that repetitive TMS can induce lasting changes in regional brain excitability and exert trans-synaptic modulatory effects on neural network activity in animal and human studies. This allows for the investigation of the rapid neuroplastic changes that compensate for brain injury or dysfunction, and permits the model-driven, individually-tailored modulation of disrupted networks for treating common neuropsychiatric conditions. We showed that TMS can aide in the recovery of hand function and aphasia after stroke, the adaptation to blindness, the rehabilitation of neglect, the control of addictive behavior, and the acquisition of language and imitation behavior in autism. My laboratory carried out the first double blind study of rTMS in major depression, and the first proof-of-principle studies suggesting therapeutic possibilities of TMS in epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, visceral pain and dystonia. This work provides support to the notion that modulation of activity along a distributed neural network can induce long-lasting plastic changes, even in the adult brain, and have behavioral consequences, which in certain conditions may be therapeutic.

Mentoring
EEG microstates and repetitive TMS: Changes in EEG microstate dynamics following
continuous theta burst stimulation to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Summer, 06/17/13 - 08/09/13
Lateralized Motor Evoked Potentials via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Summer, 06/01/08 - 09/01/08
Cortical Plasticity Associated with Blindness
Full Time, 07/03/00 - 01/28/01
Time Course of Activation of Visual Cortex in Braille Reading by Blind Patients: A Transcranial magnetic Stimulation Study
Part Time, 03/01/00 - 03/31/00
Decision-making in people with narcolepsy and healthy age-matched controls
Full Time/Year Long, 11/01/06 - 06/29/07
Time Course of Activation of visual Cortex in Braille Reading y blind Patients: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
Summer, 06/12/00 - 08/25/00
Modulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in obesity.
Summer, 06/18/07 - 08/10/07

Research
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R01MH117063
(PRESS, DANIEL Z.)
Aug 23, 2018 - May 31, 2022
The Development and Human Translation of Temporal Interference Brain Stimulation
Role: Principal Investigator
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R01MH115949
(SHAFI, MOUHSIN)
Jun 1, 2018 - Feb 28, 2023
Reliability of Repetitive TMS-induced Modulation of Cortical Excitability
Role: Principal Investigator
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R21AG051846
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
Jun 1, 2016 - Mar 31, 2018
Brain Plasticity Measures in MCI
Role: Principal Investigator
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R01MH100186
(ROTENBERG, ALEXANDER)
Aug 15, 2014 - Apr 30, 2020
Cortical Plasticity in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Role: Principal Investigator
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R21NS085491
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
Sep 1, 2013 - Aug 31, 2015
Transcranial Stimulation in Spino-Cerebellar Ataxia
Role: Principal Investigator
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R21HD077616
(EDWARDS, DYLAN JAMES)
Aug 1, 2013 - Jul 31, 2015
Non-invasive stimulation for improving motor function in spinal cord injury
Role: Co-Principal Investigator
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R21NS082870
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
May 15, 2013 - Apr 30, 2015
Cortical plasticity in type II diabetes mellitus
Role: Principal Investigator
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R21MH099196
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
May 3, 2013 - Apr 30, 2015
Role of functional brain connectivity on efficacy of TMS for depression
Role: Principal Investigator
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R21EY016168
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
Sep 16, 2005 - Aug 31, 2008
Role: Principal Investigator
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K24RR018875
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
Mar 1, 2004 - Feb 28, 2010
Study and Modulation of Brain Plasticity
Role: Principal Investigator
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R01MH069898
(BARTON, JASON J)
Dec 1, 2003 - Nov 30, 2009
Perceptual encoding and imagery in prosopagnosia
Role: Co-Principal Investigator
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R01MH057980
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
Jul 1, 1998 - Dec 31, 2002
TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION IN DEPRESSION
Role: Principal Investigator
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R01EY012091
(PASCUAL-LEONE, ALVARO)
Mar 1, 1998 - Aug 31, 2008
Neural Plasticity Associated with Braille Learning
Role: Principal Investigator
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M01RR001032
(SUKHATME, VIKAS P)
Dec 1, 1977 - Mar 31, 2010
General Clinical Research Center
Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Bibliographic
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