Neuroscience pioneer was humble, down-to-earth professor at McGill
“He was maybe the smartest man I ever knew,” said Dr. Norman White, referring to his former colleague Dr. Peter Milner.
It was strong praise for a neuroscientist, who made numerous contributions to the field throughout his decades-long career. Milner, who died June 2 at the age of 98, taught with White in the McGill University Department of Psychology. White was an undergraduate student of Milner before embarking on an academia career of his own.
“He taught at a very advanced level,” White said. “After his classes, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what he’d been telling us about the experiments and things he described. We spent time in the library trying to read the papers he’d discussed.”
Neuroscience was actually Milner’s second career. Born and raised in Yorkshire, England, he initially trained as an electrical engineer and worked with the British Air Defence Research and Development Establishment during the Second World War. As the war was winding down, Milner was asked if
he’d have any interest in relocating to Canada to work on atomic energy. He and his girlfriend Brenda agreed, and in 1944 they created a new life on the other side of the pond.
“When we discussed the idea she seemed happy with it, so we got a special licence, took it to the registry office, and were married in time to make the travel arrangements,” Milner wrote in an autobiography for the Society for Neuroscience.
Brenda Milner was a Cambridge graduate and began studying at McGill University under renowned psychologist Donald Hebb, the father of modern-day neuropsychology. She soon forged a remarkable career of her own in both academia and research, and is credited with having discovered where memories are stored in the brain. In 2018, she was named a Companion of the Order of Canada.
Peter Milner began reading some of her course work and was inspired to shift his career path to one more focused on psychology and neuroscience. After a year of undergraduate psychology courses, he became a graduate student under Hebb. Following the completion of his PhD, he was appointed as an assistant professor at McGill in 1956. His discoveries and experiments ranged from electrical stimulation of rats to studying how the human brain reacted to pleasure.
Despite his pioneering work, Milner was humble and down to earth. When lecturing his students, he’d have his back toward them while writing complex diagrams on the blackboard.
“He was a shy man,” White said. “He always took you seriously and listened carefully to what you had to say.”
Milner was also generous with his time when it came to his students.
“He was very cordial and tried to deal with them on their own terms,” White said.
“He dealt with younger people well. He was always interested in people who were starting out. In academia, not everyone supports new people, but he did.”
In 1970, Milner combined various notes he’d given students and made a textbook, Physiological Psychology, that was translated into several other languages. One of his papers, A Model for Visual Shape Recognition, attempted to understand visual recognition and perceptions.
Milner’s last research publication, written in retirement, focused on the brain, motivation and learning. In 2005, he was honoured with the Gold Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology from the Canadian Psychological Association.
“He always had a new perspective and new ideas,” White said. “During seminars, he would be the one who would ask the penetrating questions.”
Dr. Peter Milner Born: 1919
Died: June 2, 2018