Miller Steven M
Perceptual and Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Physiology, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, School of Biomedical Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, Central Clinical School, Monash University and Alfred Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
J Comp Neurol. 2020 Dec 1;528(17):3171-3197. doi: 10.1002/cne.24943. Epub 2020 Aug 18.
Science and medicine aim to identify verifiable and replicable truths. However, the paths to such truths are frequently characterized by swinging pendulums of opposing perspectives. This is especially so in human neuroscience and the brain-based clinical sciences, where the target of investigation is the most complex of all biological systems. This article overviews a set of interrelated neuroscientific and clinical hypotheses, models, experiments, and predictions with which I have been involved for the last two decades. Traversing visual neuroscience, consciousness science, genetics, chronobiology, and biological and clinical psychiatry, the work illustrates how developments in science and medicine can occur through a combination of synthesis, serendipity, and experimentation. The article also reflects on doing science with the inimitable John "Jack" Pettigrew, and outlines how Pettigrew and I conceived, proposed, tested, and developed two new scientific models-one on neural mechanisms of binocular rivalry, the other on the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder. I also provide an update on various aspects of our models and data, and describe lessons learned from Pettigrew on how perspectives in science exhibit their own fluctuations, ironically like the very phenomena on which we worked.
科学和医学旨在识别可验证和可复制的真理。然而，通向这些真理的道路常常以相互对立观点的摇摆不定为特征。在人类神经科学和基于大脑的临床科学中尤其如此，因为这些领域的研究对象是所有生物系统中最复杂的。本文概述了一系列相互关联的神经科学和临床假设、模型、实验及预测，这些是我在过去二十年中所参与的。该研究涵盖了视觉神经科学、意识科学、遗传学、生物钟学以及生物和临床精神病学，展示了科学和医学的发展是如何通过综合、偶然发现和实验相结合而实现的。文章还回顾了与独特的约翰·“杰克”·佩蒂格鲁一起开展科学研究的经历，并概述了佩蒂格鲁和我如何构思、提出、测试和开发了两个新的科学模型——一个是关于双眼竞争的神经机制，另一个是关于双相情感障碍的病理生理学。我还提供了我们模型和数据各方面的最新情况，并描述了从佩蒂格鲁那里学到的经验教训，即科学中的观点如何呈现出自身的波动，具有讽刺意味的是，就像我们所研究的那些现象一样。
