Alejandra Climent Perin, M.D.

My research interest is in the areas of clinical neurophysiology and its application in the operating room (intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring (IONM)) as well as in the laboratory. Understanding neural function and neural diseases are major intellectual and practical challenges facing mankind. Clinical neurophysiology helps to investigate the physiology and physiopathology of neural diseases. IONM assesses and helps sustain the wellbeing and integrity of the nervous system function during surgical procedures. My goal is improve understanding of the mechanisms for injury of neural systems in humans and finding correlations between neurophysiological data pre and post-operative or post-intervention to optimize patient outcomes to gain clinical benefits.

I have an extensive background in clinical neurophysiology, with specific training and expertise in intraoperative neurophysiology. In 2008, I joined the Intraoperative Neurophysiology department of the Institute for neurology and neurosurgery (INN) at Roosevelt Hospital (New York) directed by Professor Vedran Deletis. The INN is a state-of-the-art pediatric and adult diagnosis and treatment center for patients who have neurological disorders. I was a research fellow focused on the physiology of the motor system in humans. Our research involved waveform analysis of motor evoked potentials (MEPs), prevention of motor deficits in the intraoperative setting and developing techniques to obtain MEPs under partial paralysis. I have carried out several clinical and animal trials involving the study of the central and peripheral nervous system function.

I present at professional society meetings and educational courses on- and off-campus. I also acted as a mentor for the Intraoperative neurophysiology educational Program in Bellvitge university hospital in Barcelona (Spain). In my studies I combine several neurophysiological techniques to understand the physiology and injury mechanisms of motor function. My aim is to designing and implementing new approaches and methods to IONM which improve prognosis and help to minimize motor neurological deficit during surgeries involving neural structures, promoting corticospinal functional knowledge, and its relation with motor activity in the operating room an in the laboratory. I use a combination of behavioral and electrophysiological techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in the laboratory or as transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) in the operating room to address those questions. My ultimate career goal is to develop novel and innovative neurophysiology techniques to monitor the function of the neural systems, therefore obtain neurophysiological markers that can be used as predictors of outcome for motor function recovery in patients with disabilities.

Work History

Invited Professor
Neurological Electrodiagnosis Master
Module of Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring Medical School of Barcelona University

Invited Professor
Course & Workshop: Multimodal  Intraoperative Neuromonitoring in  the field of neurosurgery, neurology orthopaedics  and anesthesia
Universitäts Freiburg Klinikum Neurosurgical Department in collaboration with Neurosurgical department of the Albert-Ludwig University, ARKANA Emmendingen, Freiburg, Germany