Biography

Dr Cortes is a neuroscientist and physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist with special interest in the study of brain plasticity in relation with rehabilitation. Currently she is Assistant Professor and Director of Neuromodulation, at the Department of Rehabilitation & Human Performance at Mount Sinai. At the ARC clinicians and scientists’ partner with innovators and industry leaders, using a multidisciplinary approach to help individuals achieve maximum performance and wellness.

The primary goals of Dr. Cortes’s research are to understand neural plasticity and its clinical implications She studies how to activate, modulate, and reorganize brain and spinal networks to restore function and promote brain plasticity in people affected by neurological disorders. Her aim is to develop novel individualized rehabilitation strategies to improve quality of life for patients with neurological impairments.

In her studies she uses a combination of brain stimulation techniques, robotic devices, virtual reality, and bio-experiential designed rooms to promote functional recovery, quality of life and wellbeing.

Dr. Cortes holds an MD from the University of Pais Vasco (Spain). She is a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation specialist (Bellvitge University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain), she did a non-invasive brain stimulation fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She was the director of the Human Spinal Cord Injury Repair laboratory at the Burke Neurological Institute (Cornell University), prior moving to Mount Sinai to be the Co-Director of the Abilities Research Center first, then Director of Neuromodulation, and Assistant Professor at the Rehabilitation & Human Performance Department.