As a pioneer in the field of cognitive neuroscience, Brenda Milner is considered by many to be the founder of neuropsychology. In addition, Milner has made a fundamental contribution to understanding the brain bases that underlie the functioning of human memory.
In the 1950s she studied, together with the neurosurgeon William Scoville, the case of Henry Molaison, perhaps the most famous amnesic patient in the history of neuroscience. It is above all thanks to her that today we know that mnemonic processes are complex phenomena, linked to specific regions of the brain. For this reason, in this Psychology-Online article we will discover together who is Brenda Milner, her biography, contributions to psychology and phrases.
Index
- Biography of Brenda Milner
- Contributions to the psychology of Brenda Milner
- Discoveries and awards of Brenda Milner
- Brenda Milner Quotes
Biography of Brenda Milner.
Born on July 15, 1918, in Manchester, England, Brenda Milner initially seemed destined for an artistic career. The prospect of her not being able to support herself with a degree in that field changed her mind, pushing her towards the Faculty of Psychology. When the war broke out, all the Cambridge researchers were invited to work for the Air Force and in those years she met her future husband, Peter Milner, an electrical engineer.
Two years later, in 1944, she informed him of her intention to leave the country to go with a group of physicists to Montreal, where she intended to start research on nuclear energy. She followed him, but she certainly had no intention of living like a good housewife, taking care of the her housework: she thus she began to work for the prestigious University of Montreal, where she for some years she taught animal psychology.
What did Brenda Milner discover?
After earning her doctorate in 1952, Brenda Milner continued to study memory disorders caused by lesions of the cerebral hemispheres, which she had had occasion to face during the doctorate. Two years later, she was invited to Hartford to study the case of H.M.of her, which changed her career and her life forever.
Milner's exceptional discovery in this case was a pioneer in subsequent studies in neuropsychology, especially in relation to the role of the hippocampus and structures related to neurodegenerative pathologieslike Alzheimer's. Furthermore, Milner observed that dementia patients cannot form new memories while retaining past memories.
Given the importance of her case, after the death of H.M. in 2008, her brain was stored and analyzed for further study. Brenda, on the other hand, more than a hundred years old and with twenty prestigious awards in the medical field she continues to work at the Montreal Neurological Institute, always with the same curiosity and passion.
Contributions to the psychology of Brenda Milner.
Brenda Milner revealed her fundamental findings as a result of studying a patient, H.M., who in 1953 underwent surgery to control epilepsy. The intervention involved bilateral removal of the hippocampus and associated structures.
Milner showed that H.M. could no longer retain the memory of recent events due to the operation. The most relevant thing about H.M., however, was that some aspects of her memory were completely untouched by the operation. For example, their memory for remote events and their ability to learn remained unchanged.
Below I explain in detail other results that emerged along with many other subsequent studies:
There is not just one type of memory
In other studies carried out by Brenda Milner, it is shown that in humans, as in many other mammals, there is no single type of memory. A first distinction is the one drawn between long-term memory and short-term memory: H.M. he retained memories of events from the distant past, but was unable to transform an immediate memory into a long-term memory.
Definition of the different types of memory
In addition, Brenda Milner distinguished another difference between memory for specific events, people, and places, known as episodic memory, and memory for motor skills, such as riding a bike, or procedural memory. H.M. she could acquire new skills, although she did not recall learning them: damage to the hippocampal region had compromised episodic but not procedural memory.
As a result of thousands of studies subsequent to the pioneering work of Brenda Milner, it was possible clearly define these different types of memory.
The role of the hippocampus in memory
Furthermore, her discovery that a particular part of the brain, the hippocampal formation, plays a key role in memory has had a lasting impact and has led to extensive research on the precise role of the hippocampus and the structures associated.
Much of the research on neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's, is closely related to the discoveries of Brenda Milner. Like H.M., dementia patients are often unable to form new memories while retaining memory of past events. There is evidence that patients with dementia exhibit degeneration of the hippocampal region.
In addition to her work on the hippocampus and memory, Brenda Milner has made considerable contributions to our understanding of the roles of other parts of the brain, especially the frontal cortex, in information processing. She also studied the specialization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and the ability of the two hemispheres to compensate for brain damage.
Discoveries and awards of Brenda Milner.
Brenda Milner is one of the group of founders and pioneers of cognitive neuroscience, the link between the study of the brain and the study of mental processes. Furthermore, Milner has shown that a part of the brain, the medial temporal lobe, and in particular the hippocampus and related structures, plays a crucial role in memory formation.
Discoveries of Brenda Milner
Brenda Milner drew from the study of H.M. Some important principles regarding the biological basis of memory complex:
- Memory is a distinct mental function.
- Short-term and long-term memory can be stored separately. Loss of the hippocampus prevents conversion of cues from one memory to another.
- At least one type of memory can be attributed to specific points in the brain.
- Beyond consciousness, there is an unconscious memory that resides outside of the hippocampus and brain. middle temporal lobe.
Awards received by Brenda Milner
She has received a large number of national and international awards including 19 honorary degrees; She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Canada, as well as a Foreign Affiliate of the United States Academy of Sciences and a member of many other national academic societies and foreigners. Next, I'll show you some of his most outstanding awards:
- Officer of the Order of Canada (1984) and of Quebec (1985).
- First recipient of the Wilder Penfield Prize for Biomedical Research (Quebec, 1993),
- Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame (1997),
- Gold Medal at the Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (2002).
- US Academy of Sciences Award in the Neurosciences (2004).
- Companion of the Order of Canada (2005).
- Grand Officer of the Order of Quebec (2009).
Today, Brenda Milner continues to contribute to the work of the international scientific community as a speaker visiting or teaching at European and overseas universities, and taking part in administrative committees and redactions.
Quotes by Brenda Milner.
Some of the most outstanding expressions by Brenda Milner are:
- People think that, being very old, I should assume the role of professor emeritus. Well, I have no intention. I'm a busybody, you know, a very curious person.
- I'm happy if something I find is useful, of course. But it's not what drives me. What drives me is curious.
- My parents were musicians. My father was a music critic and pianist, and he met my mother when she started taking singing lessons from him. Unlike my parents, it soon became clear that she was not good at music. However, when she was young, she was quite interested in literature, which was a comfort to them. As I have always been good with languages, I was advised to enroll in a liberal arts school in Oxford. But I loved math and physics, so I decided to do math, despite everyone telling me I was crazy, and I got a scholarship to Cambridge. It was 1936, long before World War II.
- It was a shock to my mother, who had always hoped that I would follow an artistic bent, which would make her more involved. She had made peace with her math at Cambridge, because it seemed like a good thing. But when I quit to go into psychology, I broke her heart.
Now that you know everything about Brenda Milner: her biography, contributions to psychology and phrases; You may be interested in knowing other notable figures of Psychology in our article The most important women psychologists in history.
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Bibliography
- Berva, G. T. (2021). Brenda Milner: thing ci insegna il cervello di H.M. conservato nella formaldeide. Recovered from: https://salute.robadadonne.it/brenda-milner/
- Petralia, S. (2020). Brenda Milner, the neuropsychologist who has revealed and mysteri della memoria. Recovered from: https://oggiscienza.it/2020/09/03/brenda-milner-neuropsicologia/
