Miguel Alonso-Alonso, MD PhD, a physician-scientist with expertise in cognitive and clinical neuroscience, is Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), where he directs the Laboratory of Bariatric and Nutritional Neuroscience at the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine within the Department of Surgery.
Dr. Alonso-Alonso’s research aims to understand the neurocognitive basis of eating behavior and obesity, and to develop novel interventions based on targeting neurocognition. His work combines behavior, nutrition and clinical measures with cutting-edge noninvasive cognitive neuroscience tools, such as computerized testing, functional neuroimaging and neurotechnologies. Recent work from his lab includes the development of a programmable computerized meal table with capabilities to sense and display information during the course of a meal, the design of food-modified computerized neuropsychology tasks that are being used by local, national, and international research teams, and pioneering applications of noninvasive neuromodulation with tDCS in obesity.
Dr. Alonso-Alonso is also a Co-Investigator of the NIDDK-funded multicenter Look AHEAD Extension trial, responsible for the BIDMC part of the Boston site. The primary aims of this trial are to test legacy effects of the intensive lifestyle intervention delivered during the initial Look AHEAD trial on increased lifespan and reduced health care costs, while the secondary aim is to determine its effect on key dimensions of healthy aging.
Among a number of educational and community contributions, Dr. Alonso-Alonso has been actively involved in the organization of innovative transdisciplinary events in the Boston area related to eating behavior, nutrition and obesity, such as Hacking Eating Tracking (2015): https://www.hackingeatingtracking.org/ and the Boston Obesity and Nutrition Datathon (2018): http://bondatathon.org/
Originally from Galicia, northwest Spain, Dr. Alonso-Alonso is board-certified in Neurology and also holds postgraduate degrees in Medicine/Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology (PhD summa cum laude, University of Barcelona), Clinical Neuroscience (MSc with distinction, University College London) and Clinical Investigator Training Program (MMSc, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technologies).
Laboratory website: www.alonso-alonso-lab.org
(Biography as of July 2018)