Peter Milner
{{Short description|British-Canadian neuroscientist}}
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| name = Peter Milner
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1919|06|13|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Silkstone Common, Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
| death_date = {{death date and age |2018|06|02|1919|06|13|df=yes}}
| death_place = Montréal, Canada
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| fields = Neuroscience
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Peter Milner (13 June 1919 – 2 June 2018) was a British-Canadian neuroscientist.
Biography
Milner was born in Silkstone Common and grew up in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. His father was David William Milner, a research chemist, and his mother was Edith Anne Marshall, an ex-schoolteacher.{{cite web|url=https://www.mcgill.ca/psychology/article/remembering-peter-m-milner-1919-2018|title=Remembering Peter M. Milner|last=White|first=Norman|date=6 June 2018|publisher=McGill}}
He worked at the UK's Air Defence Research and Development Establishment before moving to Canada in 1944. He was an electrical engineer, but became interested in neuroscience while his wife Brenda Milner was studying the subject at McGill University; he became a graduate student under the same supervisor as she, and later taught at McGill himself.{{cite news|url=https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/life-stories-neuroscience-pioneer-peter-milner-taught-at-mcgill|work=Montreal Gazette|first=Salim |last=Valji|title=Life Stories: Neuroscience pioneer Peter Milner taught at McGill|date=11 June 2018}} In collaboration with James Olds,{{Cite web |title=History of Brain Stimulation - Handbook of Interventional Psychiatry |url=https://interventionalpsych.org/db/history-of-brain-stimulation/ |access-date=2024-12-16 |website=interventionalpsych.org |language=en-US}} he is credited with the discovery of the pleasure centre and the pain centre in the rat brain.{{cite journal |last1=Kringelbach |first1=ML |last2=Berridge |first2=KC |title=The functional neuroanatomy of pleasure and happiness |journal=Discovery Medicine |date=June 2010 |volume=9 |issue=49 |pages=579–587 |pmid=20587348|pmc=3008353 }}{{cite book |first1=Edmund S |last1=Higgins|first2= Mark S|last2=George|title=Brain stimulation therapies for clinicians |date=2009 |publisher=American Psychiatric Publishing |isbn=9781585628902 |page=8 |edition=1st}}{{cite journal|last=Winocur|first= G|year=1991|title=Editorial|journal= Canadian Journal of Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie|volume= 45 |issue=1|doi=10.1037/h0084384}}
In his 1974 article "A Model for Visual Shape Recognition" Milner mentions a popular hypothesis suggesting that the features of individual objects are bound/segregated via synchronization of the activity of different neurons in the cortex.{{Cite journal |last=Milner |first=Peter M. |date=1974 |title=A model for visual shape recognition |url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/h0037149 |journal=Psychological Review |volume=81 |issue=6 |pages=521–535 |doi=10.1037/h0037149 |pmid=4445414}} The theory, called binding-by-synchrony (BBS), is hypothesized to occur through the transient mutual synchronization of neurons located in different regions of the brain when the stimulus is presented.{{Cite journal |last1=Romera |first1=Miguel |last2=Talatchian |first2=Philippe |last3=Tsunegi |first3=Sumito |last4=Yakushiji |first4=Kay |last5=Fukushima |first5=Akio |last6=Kubota |first6=Hitoshi |last7=Yuasa |first7=Shinji |last8=Cros |first8=Vincent |last9=Bortolotti |first9=Paolo |last10=Ernoult |first10=Maxence |last11=Querlioz |first11=Damien |date=2022-02-15 |title=Binding events through the mutual synchronization of spintronic nano-neurons |journal=Nature Communications |volume=13 |issue=1 |page=883 |doi=10.1038/s41467-022-28159-1 |pmid=35169115 |pmc=8847428}}
Milner received the Gold Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology from the Canadian Psychological Association in 2005.
Milner died on 2 June 2018 at Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal in Montréal.{{Cite web|url=https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/life-stories-neuroscience-pioneer-peter-milner-taught-at-mcgill|title=Life Stories: Neuroscience pioneer Peter Milner taught at McGill |work= Montreal Gazette}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/peter-milner-obituary?id=41935581|title=Peter MILNER Obituary (2018)|website=Legacy.com}}
References
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Category:Canadian neuroscientists
Category:British emigrants to Canada
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