Marcelo Luis Berthier | Neuroscience| Best Researcher Award

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Prof. Marcelo Luis Berthier | Neuroscience| Best Researcher Award

 

Unversidad de Málaga, Spain

Profile

Education

Marcelo Luis Berthier obtained his degree in Medicine (1972-1976) and completed residency training in Neurosurgery (1977-1980), later specializing in Neurology (1980). He served as a staff neurologist at the Institute of Neurological Research, FLENI, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1980-1989), before becoming a research fellow in the Department of Neurology at Clinic Hospital of Barcelona, Spain (1989-1990). From 1991 to 2000, he was a staff neurologist and physician in charge of the Behavioural Neurology Unit at the Clinic University Hospital of Malaga. He earned a PhD in Neuroscience (cum laude) from the University of Malaga and coordinated the Group of Behavioural Neurology and Dementia of the Spanish Neurological Society (2004-2006). In 2004, he founded and directed the Unit of Cognitive Neurology and Aphasia at the Centro de Investigaciones Médico-Sanitarias, University of Malaga, leading it until 2023. Additionally, he served as the director of the Consolidated Research Group on Cognitive Neuroscience: Aphasia and Related Disorders (UNCA, C-12) at the Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA – Plataforma BIONAND).

Work experience

Dr. Marcelo L. Berthier Torres has led and contributed to several groundbreaking research projects in cognitive neurology and aphasia. As a co-investigator, he participated in the Telerehabilitation in Aphasia project (2021-2023), which evaluated the effectiveness of telerehabilitation compared to face-to-face therapy and identified predictive biomarkers of response, funded by the Junta de Andalucía. He also served as the principal investigator for a study on the efficacy of combined treatment with donepezil, intensive rehabilitation, and transcranial direct current stimulation in chronic post-stroke aphasia (2016-2019), funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Additionally, he has contributed to the Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento “Frontera”, an initiative under the FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 program, which investigates brain biomarkers for individualized treatment approaches in chronic post-stroke aphasia

Areas of Research

Dr. Marcelo L. Berthier Torres has made significant contributions to the treatment of post-stroke aphasia and speech-language disorders. He conducted the first open-label and randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials investigating the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs (donepezil and memantine) alone and in combination with standard aphasia therapy or intensive language-action therapy (ILAT) in chronic post-stroke aphasia. His pioneering studies stimulated international research on aphasia pharmacotherapy, leading to clinical translation. Today, donepezil and memantine, alone or combined with therapy, are widely used off-label for post-stroke aphasia and language disturbances associated with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and primary progressive aphasia.

Publication

  • Revisiting the boundaries of different altered accents profiles

    Cortex
    2025-03 | Journal article
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2025.01.001
    CONTRIBUTORS: Marcelo L. Berthier; Ignacio Moreno-Torres; Jo Verhoeven; Guadalupe Dávila

  • Turning the Spotlight to Cholinergic Pharmacotherapy of the Human Language System

    CNS Drugs
    2023-07 | Journal article
    DOI: 10.1007/s40263-023-01017-4
    CONTRIBUTORS: Guadalupe Dávila; María José Torres-Prioris; Diana López-Barroso; Marcelo L. Berthier

  • Pharmacotherapy for post-stroke aphasia: what are the options?

    Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy
    2023-07-24 | Journal article
    DOI: 10.1080/14656566.2023.2221382
    CONTRIBUTORS: Marcelo L. Berthier; Guadalupe Dávila

  • Brain structural and functional correlates of the heterogenous progression of mixed transcortical aphasia

    Brain Structure and Function
    2023-05-31 | Journal article
    DOI: 10.1007/s00429-023-02655-6
    CONTRIBUTORS: Diana López-Barroso; José Paredes-Pacheco; María José Torres-Prioris; Guadalupe Dávila; Marcelo L. Berthier

  • Controlling the past, owning the present, and future: cholinergic modulation decreases semantic perseverations in a person with post-stroke aphasia

    Aphasiology
    2022-11-02 | Journal article
    DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2021.1957082
    CONTRIBUTORS: Marcelo L. Berthier; Daniel Santana-Moreno; Álvaro Beltrán-Corbellini; Juan C. Criado-Álamo; Lisa Edelkraut; Diana López-Barroso; Guadalupe Dávila; María José Torres-Prioris