Dr. Gabriel Salazar Tortolero

Career

Dr. Gabriel Salazar graduated in Medicine from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) and obtained his Neurology specialist qualification from the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares in 2004. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in movement disorders and Parkinson's disease at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, where he began his career as a neurologist in 1998.

He has extended his training with a Master's in Neurodegenerative Diseases (UAB, 2022) and a Master's in Neuroimmunology (UAB, 2025), incorporating the most current diagnostic and treatment approaches in neurodegeneration into his clinical practice.

Academic and hospital positions

He has been an associate professor of Neurology at Universidad Internacional de Catalunya (UIC) since 2009 and Head of the Neurology Department and Functional Neurosurgery Unit at Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa. He also leads the Parkinson's and movement disorders unit at the Alomar Institute and the Movement Disorders Unit at Brain & Spine Barcelona.

His clinical work is complemented by running the information website www.barcelonaparkinson.com, an initiative providing information and support for patients with Parkinson's disease and their families.

Clinical activity

Dr. Salazar devotes the majority of his practice to the diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, dystonia, Lewy body disease and other movement disorders. He is one of the pioneering neurologists in the use of HIFU (MRI-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound) in Parkinson's and movement disorders, a technique that treats tremor in an incisionless manner, without open surgery or chronic stimulation.

He is also a leading expert in ultrasound-guided botulinum toxin for the treatment of spasticity, focal dystonias, neuropathic pain and hyperhidrosis. He has worked with DBS (deep brain stimulation) in collaboration with the functional neurosurgery team since 1998 and has integrated non-invasive techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and chronic pain into his practice.

Research, publications and projects

He has published continuously since 2008 in indexed journals in the areas of functional surgery, botulinum toxin, advanced Parkinson's, deep brain stimulation, qEEG and neuroimmunology. He is author or co-author in journals including Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurología, EC Neurology, Tremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements, Parkinson's Disease Journal and Movement Disorders, among others.

He has developed two clinical applications: iToxin (Android and iOS), a guide to botulinum toxin infiltration in cervical musculature for neurologists and rehabilitation specialists, and MiParkinson (Android and iOS), a self-assessment application for Parkinson's patients.

How he works at Brain & Spine Barcelona

At Brain & Spine Barcelona, Dr. Salazar leads the Movement Disorders Unit, a collaborative unit bringing together neurology and functional neurosurgery. His practice integrates clinical diagnosis, neurophysiological studies and, where appropriate, the indication of advanced treatments such as HIFU for tremor and Parkinson's, DBS in movement disorders and continuous infusion pumps. Therapeutic decisions are always made in a multidisciplinary committee alongside the centre's functional neurosurgery team.