Memory Pioneer: Interview with Brenda Milner
Shortly after arriving at 捆绑SM社区 from her native England in 1950, Brenda Milner began a fateful 30-year research collaboration with a patient named Henry Molaison鈥攁 collaboration that helped establish Milner as a pioneer in the new field of cognitive neuroscience, which merges neurology and psychology. Following an operation to control his epilepsy, 27-year-old Molaison鈥攚ho, until his death in December 2008, was publicly identified as 鈥淗M鈥濃�攍ost the ability to convert short-term memories into long-term. Although HM鈥檚 severe amnesia prevented him from recognizing Milner from one day to the next, she discovered he was able to retain certain kinds of new knowledge. Milner鈥檚 resulting demonstration of multiple human memory systems dramatically changed our understanding of how the brain works.
Today, Milner is the Dorothy J. Killam Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the MNI and 捆绑SM社区, where she continues her research. Her many honours include: induction into the Order of Canada, National Academy of Sciences (USA), American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Royal Society of London and Royal Society of Canada; the Gairdner International Award in 2005; and being named a finalist for NSERC鈥檚 Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering in 2009. Not bad for someone who started out studying mathematics at Cambridge, then followed a hunch that her future lay elsewhere. 鈥淚 would have been a bad mathematics teacher somewhere in England!鈥� she muses. 鈥淚 always tell my students not to be afraid to change.鈥�