Karina A Alvina,

Dr. Alviña is a Research Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Florida College of Medicine. She received her PhD in Biological Sciences-Physiology in 2008 from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. She went on to complete her first Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009-2011) at Columbia University in New York, NY and a second Postdoctoral Fellowship (2012-2016) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in The Bronx, NY. Dr. Alviña’s work focuses on various aspects of fundamental cellular physiology in the brain. In particular, she studies how specific areas involved in learning and memory are influenced by environmental factors such as stress, exercise and dietary habits, and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease .

Dr. Alviña’s research program centers around understanding how brain cells communicate with each other to evoke different behaviors, in normal and pathological conditions. Areas of focus include neural mechanisms altered by stress and environmental factors such as dietary habits and exercise, and how these mechanisms can lead to unhealthy cognitive aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Alviña’s laboratory utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach that includes behavioral analysis using animals models, electrophysiology, and pharmacology.

• Clinical Translational Neuroscience
• Neurodegenerative diseases
• Neurological disorders
• Neurophysiology
• Neuroplasticity
• neuro-inflammation
• neuroscience