Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone

Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Alvaro Pascual-Leone, M.D., Ph.D., is a behavioral and cognitive neurologist and neuroscientist. He serves as director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation and chief of the Division of Cognitive Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). He is an associate dean for clinical and translational research and a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Dr. Pascual-Leone’s work aims to understand the mechanisms that control brain plasticity across the lifespan to be able to modify them to produce optimal patient behavioral outcomes, prevent age related cognitive decline, reduce the risk for dementia, and minimize the impact of neurodevelopmental disorders. He is a world leader in the development, research, clinical application, and teaching of a noninvasive brain stimulation technologies, including Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and transcranial electric stimulation (tES). His research has been instrumental in establishing the field of therapeutic noninvasive brain stimulation. He is also a director of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University and the scientific director of the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative. Dr. Pascual-Leone has authored more than 750 scientific papers as well as several books and is listed as the inventor on 17 patents.