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Earl K. Miller

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Earl Keith Miller (born November 30, 1962) is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research focuses on neural mechanisms of cognitive, or executive, control.[4][1] Earl K. Miller is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience with the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[5][6][7] He is the Chief Scientist and co-founder of SplitSage.[8] He is a co-founder of Neuroblox.

Earl Miller
Earl Miller
Earl K. Miller 2022
Born
Earl Keith Miller

(1962-11-30) November 30, 1962 (age 61)
Alma materKent State University (BS, Doctor of Science, honoris causa)
Princeton University (MS, PhD)
AwardsGoldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience (2016)

Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017)

The George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience (2019)

Troland Research Award (2000)
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
Cognitive science[1]
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
ThesisNeurophysiological investigations of inferior temporal cortex of the macaque (1990)
Doctoral advisorCharles G. Gross[2]
Notable students
Websiteekmillerlab.mit.edu/earl-miller/

Education

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Earl Miller received a Bachelor of Arts degree (summa cum laude, with honors) in psychology from Kent State University in 1985, Master of Arts degree in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University in 1987, and a PhD in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University in 1990. In 2020, Earl Miller was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Science, honoris causa) from Kent State University.

Career

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Earl Miller's dissertation on neurophysiological investigations of the inferior temporal cortex in the macaque was supervised by Charles G. Gross at Princeton University.[2] From 1990–1995 he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of neuropsychology at the National Institute of Mental Health under supervision of Robert Desimone.[citation needed]

In 1995, Earl Miller joined the faculty of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT as Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and quickly advanced the academic ranks. He received tenure in 1999 (two years ahead of schedule) and became a full Professor in 2002. He was appointed to the Picower chair at MIT in 2003. He was Associate Director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT from 2001 to 2009, and was Director of Graduate Studies in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He has delivered numerous lectures worldwide, serves as editor, and on the editorial boards of, major journals in neuroscience, and on international advisory boards. He has served on the scientific advisory boards of NeuroFocus, Thync, Motimatic, and Neurable.[9][10] Professor Miller is the co-founder and Chief Scientist of SplitSage [8] and a co-founder of Neuroblox.

Research

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Professor Miller studies the neural basis of executive brain functions. Executive functions are the ability to carry out goal-directed behavior using complex mental processes and cognitive abilities. This includes working memory, attention, decision-making and learning. His lab has had made discoveries about the neural circuits, networks, and mechanisms by which the brain’s prefrontal cortex wields executive control. They have shown how categories and concepts are learned, how multifunctional, mixed-selectivity neurons endow the cortex with computational versatility and flexibility, and how neural oscillations regulate neural communication and consciousness. This work has established a foundation upon which to construct more detailed, mechanistic accounts of cognition and its dysfunction in diseases such as autism, schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder.

Examples of discoveries from Earl Miller's laboratory include the neural basis of abstract rules like "same vs. different",[3] categories,[11] quantity,[12] and the allocation of attentional resources.[13] They have also shown how the brain can learn and flexibly remap associations.[14] The Miller Lab has shown that cortical neurons can be multifunctional (i.e., show "mixed selectivity").[15] This is a major advance beyond earlier theories that each neuron has a specific function. This property gives the brain greater computational horsepower and endows flexibility, a hallmark of higher-level cognition.[16]

Miller has innovated techniques for recording from many neurons simultaneously in multiple brain areas, a departure from the classic single-neuron recording approach. It has revealed network dynamics and emergent properties that are not possible by studying individual neurons.[17] Miller's lab has used this approach to understand how network interactions produce thought and action.[18] This includes discoveries that oscillating "brain waves" control the timing of shifts of attention[19] and that different items simultaneously held in working memory line up on different phases of each brain wave.[20] The latter may explain why we can only think about a few things at the same time.[21] They have shown that lower-frequency (alpha/beta) brain waves act as a top-down control signal that regulates sensory processing in cortex.[22][23] They found that brain waves transfer information between the left and right cerebral cortex.[24] They have shown how the general anesthetic, propofol, induces unconsciousness by shifting cortical brain waves to low frequencies[25]

Miller's paper with Jonathan Cohen, An Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function,[26] has been designated a Current Classic as among the most cited papers in Neuroscience and Behavior.[27] It is the 5th most-cited paper in the history of Neuroscience.[28] His paper with Tim Buschman, Top-down versus Bottom-up Control of Attention in the Prefrontal and Posterior Parietal Cortices[29] was The Scientist's Hot Paper for October 2009.[30] Earl K. Miler was named in the top 2% of scientists worldwide [31] He has been cited in over 50,000 publications [1]

Selected Awards and Honors

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Doctor of Science (honoris causa), Kent State University (2020).

The George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience (2019).

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017)[32]

Paul and Lilah Newton Brain Science Award (2017)

The Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience (2016)[33]

Kent State University Professional Achievement Award (2016).[34]

Elected to the Memory Disorders Research Society, 2016

Amar G. Bose Research Fellowship (2014),[35]

MERIT Award, National Institute of Mental Health (2010)[citation needed]

The Mathilde Solowey Award in Neurosciences (2007)[citation needed]

Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005),[citation needed]

Picower Professorship at MIT (endowed chair) (2003)

The Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award (2000)[36]

National Academy of SciencesTroland Research Award (2000)[37]

Tenured at MIT two years ahead of schedule (1999)

John Merck Scholar Award (1998),[citation needed]

McKnight Scholar Award (1996),[citation needed]

Pew Scholar Award (1996)[38]

Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (1996)

Phi Beta Kappa (1985)

Full list of awards and honors can be found here.

Business

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The discovery that different individuals have different perceptual capacities in different parts of their field of view led Earl Miller to found SplitSage.[39] SplitSage uses a patented process to assess these individual differences. It can be used to customize displays, develop individualized training, and organize teams to maximize information throughput and improve situational awareness and performance.

Media Appearances

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Earl Miller has made frequent appearances in the popular press. He was profiled in Discover Magazine[40] and The New Yorker.[41] He wrote a guest column in Fortune.[42] Professor Miller has appeared on NBC's Today Show,[43] on CBS Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley,[44] and has been a frequent guest on National Public Radio and other radio talk shows as well as podcasts. He has been quoted and/or his work profiled in the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, Time,[45] ABC News, Slate, The Boston Globe, The Times of London, Forbes[46] etc. A list of media appearances is online.[47]

Philanthropy

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Earl Miller has established a charitable trust to create scholarships for disadvantaged students at his alma mater Kent State University[48]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Earl K. Miller publications indexed by Google Scholar  
  2. ^ a b Miller, Earl Keith (1990). Neurophysiological investigations of inferior temporal cortex of the macaque. princeton.edu (PhD thesis). Princeton University. OCLC 84015941.
  3. ^ a b Wallis, Jonathan D.; Anderson, Kathleen C.; Miller, Earl K. (2001). "Single neurons in prefrontal cortex encode abstract rules". Nature. 411 (6840): 953–956. Bibcode:2001Natur.411..953W. doi:10.1038/35082081. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 11418860. S2CID 4366539.
  4. ^ "Miller Lab". Miller Lab.
  5. ^ "Brain and Cognitive Sciences". bcs.mit.edu. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  6. ^ http://web.mit.edu/picower/faculty/miller.html Miller's page at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
  7. ^ Earl Miller Playlist Appearance on WMBR's Dinnertime Sampler Archived May 4, 2011, at the Wayback Machine radio show April 6, 2005
  8. ^ a b "SplitSage". SplitSage.
  9. ^ "Nexus of Neuroscience, Engineering, Marketing". NeuroFocus. Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. Retrieved October 20, 2011.
  10. ^ "The Executive Brain and Decision-Making". YouTube. Retrieved October 20, 2011.
  11. ^ Freedman, D.J., Riesenhuber, M., Poggio, T., and Miller, E.K. (2001) Categorical representation of visual stimuli in the primate prefrontal cortex. Science, 291:312–316.
  12. ^ Nieder, A., Freedman, D.J., and Miller, E.K. (2002) Representation of the quantity of visual items in the primate prefrontal cortex. Science, 297:1708–1711.
  13. ^ Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science, 315: 1860–1862.
  14. ^ Pasupathy, A. and Miller, E.K. (2005) Different time courses for learning-related activity in the prefrontal cortex and striatum. Nature, 433:873–876.
  15. ^ Rigotti, Mattia; Barak, Omri; Warden, Melissa R.; Wang, Xiao-Jing; Daw, Nathaniel D.; Miller, Earl K.; Fusi, Stefano (May 2013). "The importance of mixed selectivity in complex cognitive tasks". Nature. 497 (7451): 585–590. Bibcode:2013Natur.497..585R. doi:10.1038/nature12160. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 4412347. PMID 23685452.
  16. ^ Fusi, Stefano; Miller, Earl K.; Rigotti, Mattia (April 1, 2016). "Why neurons mix: high dimensionality for higher cognition". Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 37: 66–74. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2016.01.010. ISSN 0959-4388. PMID 26851755. S2CID 13897721.
  17. ^ Miller, E.K., and Wilson, M.A. (2008) All my circuits: Using multiple-electrodes to understand functioning neural networks. Neuron 60:483–488
  18. ^ Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 315: 1860–1862, Pasupathy, A. and Miller, E.K. (2005) Different time courses for learning-related activity in the prefrontal cortex and striatum. Nature, 433:873–876., Freedman, D.J., Riesenhuber, M., Poggio, T., and Miller, E.K (2003) A comparison of primate prefrontal and inferior temporal cortices during visual categorization. Journal of Neuroscience, 23(12):5235–5246.
  19. ^ Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2009) Serial, covert, shifts of attention during visual search are reflected by the frontal eye fields and correlated with population oscillations. Neuron, 63: 386–396.Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2009) Serial, covert, shifts of attention during visual search are reflected by the frontal eye fields and correlated with population oscillations. Neuron, 63: 386–396.
  20. ^ Siegel, M., Warden, M.R., and Miller, E.K. (2009) Phase-dependent neuronal coding of objects in short-term memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106: 21341-21346
  21. ^ Vogel, E.K., Fukada, K. In mind and out of phase, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106:21017-21018
  22. ^ Miller, Earl K.; Lundqvist, Mikael; Bastos, André M. (October 24, 2018). "Working Memory 2.0". Neuron. 100 (2): 463–475. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2018.09.023. ISSN 0896-6273. PMC 8112390. PMID 30359609.
  23. ^ Bastos, A.M., Lundqvist, M., Waite, A.S., Kopell, N. and Miller, E.K. (2020) Layer and rhythm specificity for predictive routing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published November 23, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014868117
  24. ^ Brincat, S.L, Donoghue, J.A., Mahnke, M.K., Kornblith, S., Lundqvist, M. and Miller, E.K. (2021) Interhemispheric transfer of working memories. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.01.016
  25. ^ Bastos, A.M., Donoghue, J.A., Brincat, S.L., Mahnke, M., Yanar, J., Correa, J., Waite, A.S., Lundqvist, M., Roy, J., Brown, E.N. and Miller, E.K. (2021). Neural effects of propofol-induced unconsciousness and its reversal using thalamic stimulation. eLife, DOI: 10.7554/eLife.60824.
  26. ^ Miller, E.K. and Cohen, J.D. (2001) An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24:167–202.
  27. ^ "April 2008 – Current Classics". ScienceWatch.com. Retrieved October 20, 2011.
  28. ^ Yeung, Andy W. K.; Goto, Tazuko K.; Leung, W. Keung (September 11, 2018). "At the Leading Front of Neuroscience: A Bibliometric Study of the 100 Most-Cited Articles". Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 11: 363. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00363. PMC 5520389. PMID 28785211.
  29. ^ Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 315: 1860–1862.
  30. ^ Akst, Jef. "Cortical crosstalk – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences". The Scientist. Archived from the original on July 6, 2010. Retrieved October 20, 2011.
  31. ^ Ioannidis, John P. A.; Boyack, Kevin W.; Baas, Jeroen (2020). "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators". PLOS Biology. 18 (10): e3000918. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918. PMC 7567353. PMID 33064726.
  32. ^ "Eleven from MIT elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 2017".
  33. ^ "Earl Miller receives Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience".
  34. ^ Kent State University Alumni Association (October 5, 2015). "2015 Professional Achievement Award - Earl Miller, '85" – via YouTube.
  35. ^ "Bose grants reward risk".
  36. ^ "404". www.sfn.org. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  37. ^ "Troland Research Awards". www.nasonline.org.
  38. ^ "Directory of Scholars". www.pewtrusts.org.
  39. ^ "Home". splitsage.com.
  40. ^ Piore, Adam (October 2016). "Attention, Please: Earl Miller Wants to Make Us All Smarter". Discovery Magazine.
  41. ^ "The Eureka Hunt". The New Yorker. July 21, 2008.
  42. ^ "Here's Why You Shouldn't Multitask, According to an MIT Neuroscientist". Fortune. December 2016.
  43. ^ "This is your brain on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram other digital platforms".
  44. ^ "Take it easy–The importance of being lazy".
  45. ^ Heid, Markham (June 2017). "You Asked: How Can I Use More of My Brain?". Time.
  46. ^ Stahl, Ashley (October 2017). "4 Ways To Be More Productive At Work". Forbes.
  47. ^ "In the News". March 27, 2013.
  48. ^ "ALUMNUS DR. EARL K. MILLER AWARDS $2 MILLION GIFT TO NEUROSCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY PROGRAMS AT KENT STATE UNIVERSITY". Kent State University. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
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