Ignacio Torres Aleman is a Professor at CSIC-Instituto Cajal (IC), Madrid, Spain. He was a Group Leader of the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Insulin Peptides and the director of the institute from 2009 to 2017. In 2021, he moved to the ACHUCARRO Basque Center for Neuroscience and was appointed as its director. He became an independent researcher in 1987 while at Yale University, where he focused on the neurobiology of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). During his wide career in this field, he established that IGF-I is a potent neurotrophic factor that plays important roles in brain health and diseases, such as Alzheimer´s disease and cerebellar ataxia, intricately interacting with insulin. Observations from his group have contributed to positioning these hormones as important determinants of brain homeostasis, providing a better understanding of environmental influences on brain function, and poising insulin/IGF-1 and their pathways as a promising new target in neurodegeneration. More recently, he has focused on circuits involved in the regulation by insulin peptides of mood, cognition, sociality, and underlying energy requirements within an intricate neuron–glia cross-talk. He has 157 publications with 10972 citations and an h-index of 58 (Scopus, 12 October 2023).