Dr Steven Miller

Dr Steven Miller MBBS, PhD, Mast Occ Env Health

Steven Miller is a medical doctor (UQ) with a PhD in neuroscience and psychiatry (UQ), and a Masters of Occupational and Environmental Health (Monash). He recently completed a Victorian Neurotrauma Initiative Practitioner Fellowship, based at Monash University's School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Caulfield Pain Management & Research Centre (CPMRC) and MAPrc. Steve heads the Perceptual and Clinical Neuroscience Group (www.pcng.org.au) and combines research and clinical work. He is a medical advisor for the Victorian Government’s Health Services Group (Transport Accident Commission and WorkSafe).

Prior to coming to MAPrc, Steve worked with Jack Pettigrew at UQ where together they discovered that the rate of binocular rivalry (BR), a visual switching phenomenon, was slow in bipolar disorder. Steve and Jack also proposed a new neurophysiological model of BR based on this, and on a large series of brain stimulation studies. They synthesised their basic science and clinical findings into a pathophysiological model of bipolar disorder. At MAPrc, Steve is working with Paul Fitzgerald and Trung Ngo, continuing basic science research on mechanisms of BR, and clinical research on BR in psychiatric conditions. At CPMRC, Steve and Trung are continuing their research on vestibular stimulation as a potential treatment for persistent neuropathic pain states (funded from 2008-2011 by the Victorian Neurotrauma Initiative). They are also investigating therapeutic application of this non-invasive stimulation technique in mania and depression at MAPrc.

Steve has published papers in high-profile scientific journals such as Current Biology, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS). He was lead investigator for a 10-year (ongoing) twin study on the genetics of BR, in collaboration with Nick Martin at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (recently published in PNAS). 

Steve, Nick and Trung are in the process of establishing a national and international consortium of psychiatric research centres to examine slow BR as a potential diagnostic aid and endophenotype for bipolar disorder. Centres for this study include MAPrc (with Paul Fitzgerald), Geelong (with Mike Berk), Sydney (with Philip Mitchell), Sydney (with Gin Malhi), Brisbane (with Nick Martin and Margie Wright), Brisbane (with James Scott), Gottingen (with Thomas Schulze) and Cardiff (with Daniel Smith). The study is funded by a recent Defence Health Foundation Establishment Grant. The MAPrc arm of this study also involves eye movement research in collaboration with Caroline Winograd-Gurvich. An additional collaborative arm of Steve’s BR work involves examination of genetic and molecular determinants of rivalry rate in a Drosophila model of BR, with Bruno van Swinderen at the Queensland Brain Institute.

Steve is currently editing two volumes of collected papers for the series, ‘Advances in Consciousness Research’, published by John Benjamins. With Trung, Steve co-supervises PhD students at MAPrc and CPMRC (Wendy Barsdell and Phillip Law). He also co-supervises PhD students in the Faculty of Arts at Monash, with Jakob Hohwy (Bryan Paton and Tessa Jones).

Selected publications:

• Miller (ed). The constitution of visual consciousness: Lessons from binocular rivalry. Forthcoming in Advances in Consciousness Research, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
• Miller (ed). The constitution of phenomenal consciousness: Toward a science and theory. Forthcoming in Advances in Consciousness Research, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
• Miller SM, Ngo TT, van Swinderen B (2012). Attentional switching in humans and flies: Rivalry in large and miniature brains. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5: 188. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00188
• Ngo TT, Mitchell PB, Martin NG, Miller SM (2011). Psychiatric and genetic studies of binocular rivalry: An endophenotype for bipolar disorder? Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 23 (1): 37–42.
• Miller SM, Hansell NK, Ngo TT, Liu GB, Pettigrew JD, Martin NG, Wright MJ (2010). Genetic contribution to individual variation in binocular rivalry rate. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 107 (6): 2664–2668.
• Ngo TT, Liu GB, Tilley AJ, Pettigrew JD, Miller SM (2008). The changing face of perceptual rivalry. Brain Research Bulletin, 75 (5): 610–618.
• Ngo TT, Liu GB, Tilley AJ, Pettigrew JD, Miller SM (2007). Caloric vestibular stimulation reveals discrete neural mechanisms for coherence rivalry and eye rivalry: A meta-rivalry model. Vision Research, 47 (21): 2685–2699.
• Been G, Ngo TT, Miller SM, Fitzgerald PB (2007). The use tDCS and CVS as methods of non-invasive brain stimulation. Brain Research Reviews, 56 (2): 346–361.
• Miller SM, Ngo TT (2007). Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: Implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clinical neurosciences and neurophilosophy. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 19 (3): 183–203.
• Miller SM, Gynther BD, Heslop KR, Liu GB, Mitchell PB, Ngo TT, Pettigrew JD, Geffen LB (2003). Slow binocular rivalry in bipolar disorder. Psychological Medicine, 33 (4): 683–692.
• Miller SM, Liu GB, Ngo TT, Hooper G, Riek S, Carson RG, Pettigrew JD (2000). Interhemispheric switching mediates perceptual rivalry. Current Biology, 10 (7): 383–392.
• Pettigrew JD, Miller SM (1998). A ‘sticky’ interhemispheric switch in bipolar disorder? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B (Biological Sciences), 265 (1411): 2141–2148.