Over 200 scientists have signed a letter to the New York Times (below) supporting Sue and condemning the article. It is a biased and unfair attack on someone who is no longer here to defend herself.
Detailed response from MIT.
MIT News: Faculty at MIT and beyond respond forcefully to an article critical of Suzanne Corkin
News article
STAT: MIT challenges New York Times over book on famous brain patient
Original statement (signed by over 200 neuroscientists):
We are a community of scientists who are disturbed by a recent New York Times Magazine article (“The Brain That Couldn’t Remember”), which describes Professor Suzanne Corkin’s research in what we believe are biased and misleading ways. A number of complex issues that occur in research with humans, from differing interpretations of data among collaborators to the proper disposition of confidential data, are presented in a way so as to call into question Professor Suzanne Corkin’s integrity. These assertions are contrary to everything we have known about her as a scientist, colleague, and friend. Professor Corkin dedicated her life to using the methods of neuropsychology to illuminate how the brain gives rise to the mind, especially how different regions of the human brain support different aspects of memory. Her scientific contributions went far beyond her work with the amnesic patient HM (whose well being she protected for decades), with major contributions to understanding clinical disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. She was a highly accomplished scientist, an inspiring teacher, a beloved mentor to students and faculty, and a champion of women in science. While her recent passing is a great loss to our field, her passion and commitment continue to inspire all of us. We only regret that she is not able to respond herself.
A wonderful tribute to a dear friend
Suzanne Corkin, Who Helped Pinpoint Nature of Memory, Dies at 79
Despite Bans, Many Still Text While Driving. Radio Boston WBUR 90.0 FM
Listen here
NBC’s The TODAY show: This is your brain on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram other digital platforms (1/27/16)
Earl Miller is scheduled to discuss the myth of multitasking on NBC’s TODAY show tomorrow morning (1/27/16). Tune in (but only if it is not a distraction).
Miller Lab alumnus David Freedman is a winner of the 2016 Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. Way to go, Dave! Well deserved.
http://www.nasonline.org/programs/awards/troland-research-awards.html
Miller Lab alumnus Melissa Warden is a winner of a 2015 NIH New Innovator Award.
http://commonfund.nih.gov/newinnovator/Recipients15
We couldn’t be prouder of her if she were a Little Lebowski Urban Achiever.
Video of Earl Miller for the 2015 Professional Achievement Award from the Kent State University Alumni Association.
And makes his hometown newspaper:
On the Move – The Cleveland Plain Dealer 9-23-15
Siegel, M., Buschman, T.J., and Miller, E.K. (2015) Cortical information flow during flexible sensorimotor decisions. Science. 19 June 2015: 1352-1355.
During flexible behavior, multiple brain regions encode sensory inputs, the current task, and choices. It remains unclear how these signals evolve. We simultaneously recorded neuronal activity from six cortical regions (MT, V4, IT, LIP, PFC and FEF) of monkeys reporting the color or motion of stimuli. Following a transient bottom-up sweep, there was a top-down flow of sustained task information from frontoparietal to visual cortex. Sensory information flowed from visual to parietal and prefrontal cortex. Choice signals developed simultaneously in frontoparietal regions and travelled to FEF and sensory cortex. This suggests that flexible sensorimotor choices emerge in a frontoparietal network from the integration of opposite flows of sensory and task information.
From the MIT News Office:
Uncovering a dynamic cortex
Neuroscientists show that multiple cortical regions are needed to process information.
Earl Miller is quoted in a Time article about the dangers of multitasking:
You Asked: Are My Devices Messing With My Brain? Time (May 13, 2015)
http://time.com/3855911/phone-addiction-digital-distraction/
““Every time you switch your focus from one thing to another, there’s something called a switch-cost,” says Dr. Earl Miller, a professor of neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Your brain stumbles a bit, and it requires time to get back to where it was before it was distracted.” ““You’re not able to think as deeply on something when you’re being distracted every few minutes,” Miller adds. “And thinking deeply is where real insights come from.”
Miller Lab alumnus Melissa Warden has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship.
2015 Sloan Research Fellows
We could not be prouder of her if she were a Little Lebowski Urban Achiever.
Frequency-specific hippocampal-prefrontal interactions during associative learning
Brincat, S.L. and Miller, E.K. (2015) Nature Neuroscience, advanced online publication
Abstract:
Much of our knowledge of the world depends on learning associations (for example, face-name), for which the hippocampus (HPC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) are critical. HPC-PFC interactions have rarely been studied in monkeys, whose cognitive and mnemonic abilities are akin to those of humans. We found functional differences and frequency-specific interactions between HPC and PFC of monkeys learning object pair associations, an animal model of human explicit memory. PFC spiking activity reflected learning in parallel with behavioral performance, whereas HPC neurons reflected feedback about whether trial-and-error guesses were correct or incorrect. Theta-band HPC-PFC synchrony was stronger after errors, was driven primarily by PFC to HPC directional influences and decreased with learning. In contrast, alpha/beta-band synchrony was stronger after correct trials, was driven more by HPC and increased with learning. Rapid object associative learning may occur in PFC, whereas HPC may guide neocortical plasticity by signaling success or failure via oscillatory synchrony in different frequency bands.
MIT News Office: Neurons hum at different frequencies to tell the brain which memories it should store.
New discovery from the Miller Lab
Anne Trafton | MIT News Office
February 23, 2015
Our brains generate a constant hum of activity: As neurons fire, they produce brain waves that oscillate at different frequencies. Long thought to be merely a byproduct of neuron activity, recent studies suggest that these waves may play a critical role in communication between different parts of the brain.
A new study from MIT neuroscientists adds to that evidence. The researchers found that two brain regions that are key to learning — the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex — use two different brain-wave frequencies to communicate as the brain learns to associate unrelated objects. Whenever the brain correctly links the objects, the waves oscillate at a higher frequency, called “beta,” and when the guess is incorrect, the waves oscillate at a lower “theta” frequency. Read more
MIT News Office: Neurons hum at different frequencies to tell the brain which memories it should store.
New discovery from the Miller Lab
Anne Trafton | MIT News Office
February 23, 2015
Our brains generate a constant hum of activity: As neurons fire, they produce brain waves that oscillate at different frequencies. Long thought to be merely a byproduct of neuron activity, recent studies suggest that these waves may play a critical role in communication between different parts of the brain.
A new study from MIT neuroscientists adds to that evidence. The researchers found that two brain regions that are key to learning — the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex — use two different brain-wave frequencies to communicate as the brain learns to associate unrelated objects. Whenever the brain correctly links the objects, the waves oscillate at a higher frequency, called “beta,” and when the guess is incorrect, the waves oscillate at a lower “theta” frequency. Read more
Miller, E.K. and Buschman, T.J. (2015) Working memory capacity: Limits on the bandwidth of cognition. Daedalus, Vol. 144, No. 1, Pages 112-122. View PDF
Why can your brain store a lifetime of experiences but process only a few thoughts at once? In this article we discuss “cognitive capacity” (the number of items that can be held “in mind” simultaneously) and suggest that the limit is inherent to processing based on oscillatory brain rhythms, or “brain waves,” which may regulate neural communication. Neurons that “hum” together temporarily “wire” together, allowing the brain to form and re-form networks on the fly, which may explain a hallmark of intelligence and cognition: mental flexibility. But this comes at a cost; only a small number of thoughts can fit into each wave. This explains why you should never talk on a mobile phone when driving.
Radio New Zealand: Interview with Professor Earl Miller about Multi-tasking and technology
Originally aired on Afternoons, Tuesday 20 January 2015
Getting back into work routines, after a holiday break, is something many of us will already have come to grips with in recent weeks. And these routines seem to get busier all the time, as modern technology allows us to perform more and more tasks ourselves, quickly, on our tablets and smart phones. But at what cost? MIT neuroscientist Professor Earl Miller is an expert on divided attention. He argues our addiction to technology is actually making us less efficient.
(Back row, left to right) Vanu Bose, ’87, SM ’94, PhD ’99, son of Amar Bose; Earl Miller, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience; Jeff Grossman, an associate professor of materials science and engineering; Janet Conrad, a professor of physics; Alan Oppenheim, the Ford Professor of Engineering; and President L. Rafael Reif; and (front row, left to right) Joel Voldman, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science; Gabriel Bousquet, a PhD student in mechanical engineering; and Nicola Ferralis, a research scientist for materials science and engineering.
Bose grants reward risk
Five innovative, high-risk projects launch with support from Prof. Amar G. Bose Research Grants
They got my experiment wrong, but spelled my name right:
Biology of Consciousness: Bridging the Mind-Body Gap?
The Huffington Post 10/30/14
Our own Kay Tye receives a well-deserved honor:
Miller Lab Alumnus Tim Buschman is one of the winners of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.
According to the NIH website: The award “is designed specifically to support unusually creative new investigators with highly innovative research ideas at an early stage of their career when they may lack the preliminary data required for an R01 grant.”
We couldn’t be prouder of him if we were a Little Lebowski Urban Achiever.
“Linked” is the operative term here. Earl Miller is quoted in a New York Magazine article about a study that finds less gray matter in people who multitask more. Earl points out that the study does not necessarily mean that multitasking decreases brain matter. It could be that people with less gray matter are more impulsive and thus more prone to multitasking.
According to the press release, Kay made a “list of exceptionally talented technologists whose work has great potential to transform the world.” It won’t be through her poker play, I’ll tell you that much.
Congrats Kay! Well deserved.
Earl Miller is quoted on NBCnews.com. In brief: Don’t multitask and if you do don’t drive.
NBCnews.com: The ‘smart life’: How connected cars, clothes and homes could fry your brain