Antoni Valero-Cabré

Principal investigator, MD, PhD, DR2, CNRS

CAREER

I hold a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1995), Master (1996) and Doctorate in Neurosciences from the UAB (1999) and Postdoctoral training in behavioral and cognitive neurology, brain neuroplasticity and neuromodulation at the Harvard Medical School (HMS-BIDMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) (2000-2003). I have been a professor of Neurobiology and Neuroanatomy and Co-director of the Cerebral Dynamics, Plasticity and Rehabilitation laboratory of this institution (2004-2009), then I obtained a permanent CNRS position in Paris (France) and since 2014, I am a tenured research professor (Directeur de Recherche) in the field of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurology and director of the research group in Brain Dynamics, Plasticity and Cognitive Rehabilitation (Équipe FRONTLAB) at the Institut du Cerveau et la Moelle (ICM, UMR CNRS 7225, INSERM UMR 1127, Sorbonne Université) within the Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière campus in Paris (France).

I am also ‘Professor Col.aborador’ at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (School of Psychology & Area of Health), since 2008 (16 years). I currently direct a research group at the ICM (Paris) integrated by 2 PhD students, 2-3 potsdocs, 2 collaborative clinicians, 1 Clinical research assistant and 3 Master students. My research activities since the end of my PhD (1999) can be framed in a model of translational research to humans supported in rigorous scientific evidence developed initially in animal models of peripheral nerve, spinal cord or brain damage (mice, rat, cat and monkey) and later heathy humans and neuropsychiatric patients (motor and cognitive impairments after stroke, early onset dementia syndromes such as primary progressive aphasia, PSP, DFT and Alzheimer disease, Schizophrenia, Depression, Parkinson, Obsessive Compulsive Syndromes). Clinical experience demonstrates that brain plasticity operating at the level of perilesional and distant spared neural systems might have the potential to drive recovery after irreversible cerebral damage. Nonetheless traditional rehabilitation used in isolation show erratic results and remain far from being scientifically validated.

The long-term goal of my research program is to develop, implement and validate new cognitive rehabilitation methods which show efficacy at manipulating the plastic properties of intact or focally damaged neural circuitry to achieve performance improvements in humans, while making such knowledge and procedures available to the fields of neurology, psychiatry, cognitive rehabilitation, and neuropsychology. I have focused on the use of noninvasive brain neurostimulation (TMS, tCS and its derivatives tDCS, tACS and tRNS) in combination with rehabilitation (visual stimulation/spatial cuing, language activations), with a prior understanding of the key cellular and metabolic events affecting the underlying neural circuitry (animal and human PET MRI, MRI lesion analyses, DTI measures and resting state or task activated fMRI and scalp, epidural and intracranial local field potentials and EEG) and its dynamic reorganization after injury or rehabilitation treatments. The short-term goal of my research program has always been to unveil some of the basic mechanisms by which brain neurostimulation and cognitive/physical therapy can converge to drive adaptive recovery after brain lesions, and by doing so, develop more efficient interventional approaches for healthy participants willing to improve their abilities and patients with impaired motor, sensory or cognitive functions. A paramount step of our research strategy is to gain full understanding on how specific brain cognitive and mental processes (thus far: visual perception, spatial attention, sustained attention and executive control of cognition and behavior, conscious access, semantic access, language fluence, motor planning and learning and perceptual decision making) are in healthy participants or neuropsychiatric patients: (1) mapped in terms of network location and anatomical extent by means of TMS/tCS stimulation approaches, lesion studies combined with PET/MRI/fMRI/MEG; (2) how they are coded and modulated electrophysiologically in terms of local and interregional network wide by means of scalp EEG/MEG and intracranial EEG/SEEG or epidural recordings in awake tumor removal surgery alone of combined with brain stimulation) and finally (3) why and how when such elements are disrupted by brain disease abnormal behaviors so that disrupted cognition, impairments and altered performance arises (adapted computer based and paper & pencil psychophysical and neuropsychological paradigms, clinical scales and real time activity monitoring devices (EEG, MEG, eye-tracking/pupillometry etc.). On the basis of such knowledge and building rationales from evidence-based approaches we aim to develop brain stimulated based therapies that can improve neurological and psychiatric symptoms. For such a quest we integrate data from animal models of disease, intact healthy participants and neurological and psychiatric patients requiring cognitive and neuropsychological rehabilitation following cortical damage such as stroke, neurodegenerative diseases or because of aging. Special emphasis is placed in the causal study of signaling, coding and modulatory strategies based on oscillatory activity and interregional synchrony within brain networks.

RESEARCH GOALS

The goals of my research program for the next years are focused on:

(1) Further understanding in animal models and human healthy and brain damaged participants the plastic mechanisms underlying the effects of brain neurostimulation and rehabilitaton interventions (Project CNRS PEPS Monkeystim 2010, NIH R21, FIS, Flag eraNET-JTC-HBP CAUSALTOMICS 2017, ANR PRC BrainMag 2021, FRA funding 2021);
(2) Developing new evidence regarding the malleability of cognitive systems by training and brain stimulation, to improve cognitive and neuropsychological processes such as visuospatial and sustained attention, conscious visual perception, language and decision making in healthy humans (CNRS PIR 2010, Project eraNET Neuron BEYONDVIS 2010, ANR PRC Oscilloscopus 2015, Marie Curie cRETS and BBT-FORTE 2021, Marie Curie CLONESA 2021), with an emphasis on the manipulation of oscillatory activity and synchrony;
(3) Working to translate such findings into specific clinical treatments benefiting neurological and neuropsychiatric patients (CNRS PIR 2010, PHRC Regional NEGLECT 2008-2017, PHRC National STIMSD 2019-2023, Neurocatalyst HEMIANOTACS 2020-2023, FRA 2021 funding).

My current research program is guided and articulated on the basis of several projects for which I have always been able to obtain exploratory (CNRS PEPS 2010, CNRS PIR 2010 o jump start a topic) or longer-term funding (PHRC regional NEGLECT 2010-2014, eraNET NEURON BEYOND VIS FP7-ANR 2010-1015, ANR PRC Osciloscopus 2015-2020, eraNET-JTC-HBP 2017-2021, PHRC National STIM SD 2019-2023). My most recent research project will specifically address the use of rhythmic oscillation tailored patterns of neurostimulation to understand the cortical mapping and neuroelectrical coding on sustained attention and mind-wandering states in heathy participants, prefrontal stroke and fronto-temporal dementia patients.

Additionally, since 2015 I am elected representative at the ICM council deciding on institutional scientific policies and since 2022 member of the Comité National of the CNRS (section 26) in charge of national scientific prospective policy, personnel evaluation and member of HCERES (France) institutional evaluation committees.

Cerebral Dynamics Plasticity and Rehabilitation group within the FRONTLAB team at the ICM

The long-term goal of my group’s research program is to design, develop, and pilot new rehabilitation methods directed at manipulating the plastic properties in intact and impaired neural systems to drive cognitive and behavioral improvements in healthy humans and neuropsychiatric patients. To this end, since the end of my PhD and for the last two decades (2000-2020) my work has allowed me to develop an expertise in a myriad of brain stimulation technologies (TMS, tDCS, tACS, tRNS and intracranial stimulation) used in combination with neuroimaging and neurophysiological online and offline recordings (via PET, fMR, DTI and scalp and intracranial EEG) and also computer-based cognitive paradigms and rehabilitation approaches. We ultimately aim to design innovative neuorenhancement and therapeutic strategies by previously developing a detailed understanding of anatomical, neurophysiological, metabolic and cognitve features characterizing specific cerebral systems and their ability for plastic reorganization after injury, training or rehabilitation.

The short-term goal of our research program is to unveil the fundamental mechanisms by which brain neurostimulation and cognitive activity and rehabilitation may best converge to drive adaptive recovery after brain lesions. On such basis, we aim to develop more efficient interventions for patients. The activities of our group, prime interventions in intact healthy human participants to ubderstand and causally characterize the neural basis of specific cognitve systems, particularly, attentional orienting and visuospatial function, conscious perception, perceptual decision making and language semantic access. We have also develop work on neurological, psychiatric and neurosurgical patients suffering several types of cognitive impairments requiring adequate characterisation and rehabilitation. Since 2017, we have added the use of brain neurophysiological recordings (scalp EEG, intracranial EEG) with invasive intracranial stimulation in implanted and awake neurosurgery patients and non-invasive (TMS, tDCS, tACS, tRNS) brain stimulation. We aim to develop an accurate characterization of the structural and functional organization of cerebral systems subtending cognition in the healthy and pathological states and to optimally manipulate coding strategies and interregional synchrony for neuroenhancement or therapeutic rehabilitation.

In such context, the research activities developed by my research group of Cerebral Dynamics Plasticity and Rehabilitation within the FRONTLAB team at the ICM (CNRS UMR 7225) they involve the use of healthy human participants and neurological (neurovascular and neurodegenerative conditions)and psychiatric patients to study the neural basis of cognitive processes, such as conscious perception, attentional orienting and language, with a special emphasis on their manipulation with brain stimulation technologies.Our research production can be classified in 3 main research domains:

Domain 1 (Experimental neurophysiology in healthy humans): We employ non-invasive and also invasive neurostimulation causal interventions and non-interventional computational causal methods to characterize perceptual and visuo-spatial orienting systems, inlcuding structural and functional organization, neurophysiological coding via local and network distributed synchrony, and transient or longer term plasticty. On such basis, we have identified tested brain stimulation aproaches to boost normal cogntion in healthy individuals and pilot novel rehabilitation approaches for brain damage patients and neuropsychiatric diseases.

Domain 2 (Methodological and theoretical developments): We extend our palette of non-invasive and invaisve brain stimulation technologies to tDCS, tACS, tRNS and intracranial stimulation methods by assessing neurophysiological mechanism, efficacy and safety characterizing and modulating local oscillations and network synchrony. We have implemented and validated in our own exploratory and clinical stimulation datasets biophysically-inspired computational models of current distribution, and identified strategies and biomarkers to improve the efficacy by eventually personalizing brain neurostimulation.

Domain 3 (Experimental Therapeutics in neuropsychiatric conditions): We employ animal and human healthy and brain disease models (neurovascular and neurodegenerative) to assess the potential limitations of non invasive neurostimulation in the modulation of cognitive disability (visuospatial neglect, hemianopsia, or semantic aphasia) and contribute some of this knowledge to a better the understanding of cognitive neuroanatomy and network dynamics.

Brief Summary of my last 10 years of activity

Since the beginning of my career in 1994, I have published a total of 114 peer-reviewed articles, 9 books and 9 book chapters. Importantly, since my last promotion as DR2 now 10 years ago (Oct 2015), I have published a total of 53 scientific papers (89% as 1st or last author/co-author and ̃83% of them with students (master students, PhD students and postdocs) as relevant co-authors. I selected representative productions along the decade, demonstrating international ascendant and involvement in the areas that best represent my commitment to fundamental and applied research and the training of a new generations of scientists covering our 3 main research goals: (1) Better understanding with causal methods the neural basis of cognition (attention and perception, cognituve control, decision-making and language); (2) Contributing to the development and implementation of novel brain stimulation approaches and methods to modulate/manipulate neural activity on the basis of network models; (3)Transferring such basic knowledge to better understand impaired cognition and impement efficient rehabilitation. The list reflects recent major contributions of my group (Causal Dynamics, Plasticity & Rehabilitation) from 2014 top 2025) along which: 1) We have explored local and network effects of non-invasive neurostimulation (NIBS) on plasticity in human brain networks with an emphasis on frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital sites FEF, IPS, TPJ, V1-V2, assessed their cognitive contributions to spatial attention and conscious visual perception in healthy participants and neurological patients via oscillatory mechanisms (Chanes et al 2014, Quentin et al. 2015ab, Toba et al. 2020a, 2020b & 2020c, Elkin-Frankston et al. 2020, Stengel et al. 2021, Lin et al. 2021, Valero-Cabré et al 2022, Saint Amour et al. 2023, Valdebenito-Oyarzo et al. 2024, Saint-Amour de Chanaz et al. 2024, Martinez-Molina 2024); 2) We have developed novel non-invasive brain stimulation strategies, predictors and biophysically inspired-computational models to evaluate efficacy and safety for future human uses of NIBS coupled to EEG with an emphasis on TMS/tACS/intracranial stimulation and local and network ynchrony manipulations (Toba et al. 2020ab, Stengel et al. 2021, Lin et al. 2021, Sanches et al. 2021, Sundaresan et al. 2021, Corominas-Teruel et al. 2022 & 2023, Rohira et al 2025); 3) We have translated fundamental knowledge into neurostimulation-based therapies for neurological rehabilitation, via rTMS and tDCS applications on stroke, neurodegeneration and psychiatric symptoms (Teichmann et al. 2016&2025, Sanches et al. 2021&2022, Valero-Cabré et al., 2022, Maatoug et al. 2020 & 2021). Supported by recently funded local, national and international grants Future research steps will deepen in these same 3 directions. For further details, read my last 5-year CNRS reports (September 2018 & December 2023), covering a full decade of scientific & institutional endeavors as DR2 researcher.

Since my DR promotion, I have actively contributed to generating and disseminating knowledge through 53 peer-reviewed articles (≈89% as first or last author), representing 42% of my career output. These works were co-authored by PhD students (≈37%), postdocs (≈49%), and Master’s students (≈28%) from our lab, whose contributions were always acknowledged to best support their careers as clinician-researchers or academics. Over the last 10 years as DR2, I have trained a new generation of scientists, physician-scientists, and clinical trial assistants. I supervised/co-supervised 11 PhDs (4 ongoing), 42 M2 students, 8 postdocs, 14 international fellows, and 10 medical students/interns. Notably, 4 of my first PhDs in the USA and 4 PhDs/postdocs in France now hold permanent faculty positions (USA, Spain, France, including 2 at CNRS Section 28). I have been actively engaged in education and direct transmission to younger generations with ~85 hours/year of undergraduate, Master, and graduate teaching in France and abroad (UK: Bangor; Spain: UB, UAB, URV, UOC; Chile: UChil, UCP, UCV; USA: BU, NYU, Harvard, Columbia; India: ITT Gandhinagar). I designed, directed and coordinated courses on NIBS, critical research writing, most recently a Cognitive Neuroanatomy and Neuroimaginb (PSL/ENS M2 Program), combining theory and hands-on training. I have significantly increased my involvement in community activities. Nationally, as member of CoCNRS Section 26 since 2022, twice as HCERES expert committee, coordinator of an upcoming thematic network (GDR) on NIBS. Locally, as Director of the Exploratory & Clinical Neuromodulation Research Axis and the Causal Dynamics, Plasticity & Rehabilitation Group, and scientific advisor for the ICM CENIR NIBS/MRI/EEG platform. Internationally, as Director of Studies, Speech Therapy School (UOC, Spain). We have implemented effective translation of knowledge on the causal basis of attention & perception, executive control, decision-making and language and cortical plasticity, excitability and oscillatory entrainment and into therapeutic NBS applications, socializing these approaches to patients of the public health hospital network (APHP). We are among the few ICM groups running studies with 4 Pitié-Salpêtrière services (rehabilitation, neurology, epileptology & psychiatry).

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