Professorship 1999-2002
Professorship 1999-2002
 Earl K. Miller, Ph.D., is the "Class of 1956" Associate Professor of Neuroscience in
the Center for Learning and Memory, the RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Center, and
the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. He received his B.A. in Psychology from Kent State
University in 1985. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology and Neuroscience in
1990 from Princeton University. From 1990-1995, he was a postdoctoral
fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health. He has been at MIT since
1995. Earl Miller is the recipient of several awards for his scientific
work, including the Pew Scholar Award (1996), the McKnight Scholar Award
(1996), the John Merck Scholar Award (1998), the National Academy of
Sciences Troland Research Award (2000), and the Society for Neuroscience
Young Investigator Award (2000). His family includes his wife, Marlene and
his cats, Paulie and Raymond.The research interests of the Miller Lab center around the neural mechanisms for voluntary, goal-directed, behavior. Much effort is directed at the prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with the highest levels of cognitive function. They combine a sophisticated behavioral methodology with techniques for examining the activity of groups of neurons. The prefrontal cortex (PFC), a cortical region at the anterior end of the brain, has long been known to play a central role in orchestrating complex thoughts and actions. Its damage or dysfunction seems to result in a loss of the brain's "executive". It disrupts the ability to ignore distractions, hold important information "in mind", plan behavior, and control impulses. Recent results from the Miller Lab suggest that the PFC provides an infrastructure for the rapid synthesis of the diverse information. Its major function may be to acquire and implement our internal representations of the "rules of the game" needed to achieve a given goal in a given situation. This could lay the foundation for the complex and elaborate forms of behavior observed in primates, in whom this structure is most elaborate. |
Other Class of 1956 Professorship Recipients
