Aaron D. Milstein
Biography
Aaron Milstein is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Neuroscience and Cell Biology and the Dept. of Neurosurgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and a resident faculty member at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine. As a graduate student with Roger Nicoll, he integrated molecular biology and electrophysiology techniques with mathematical modeling to study synaptic transmission in the hippocampus, a brain region required for spatial and episodic memory. During a postdoc with Jeff Magee and Sandro Romani, he combined direct intracellular recordings from neuronal dendrites with biophysically detailed computational modeling to study how the integrative properties of neurons with extended dendrites contribute to the spatial memory function of the hippocampus. This work led to the discovery of a novel form of synaptic plasticity in which dendritic calcium spikes rapidly modify the spatial tuning of hippocampal place cells in as little as a single trial. As an Instructor mentored by Ivan Soltesz, Aaron developed large biologically-detailed neuronal network models to dissect the circuit components of memory and dysfunction in epilepsy.
Research Interests
Computational dissection of the neural circuit mechanisms of learning and memory in health and disease
Education
B.S. Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003, Ph.D. Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, 2009
Titles and Affiliations
Academic Appointments
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology
Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery
Selected Publications
Behavioral time scale synaptic plasticity underlies CA1 place fields., Inhibitory suppression of heterogeneously tuned excitation enhances spatial coding in CA1 place cells., Bidirectional synaptic plasticity rapidly modifies hippocampal representations., Offline memory replay in recurrent neuronal networks emerges from constraints on online dynamics, Recurrent Excitatory Feedback From Mossy Cells Enhances Sparsity and Pattern Separation in the Dentate Gyrus Indirect Feedback Inhibition., Neuromorphic one-shot learning utilizing a phase-transition material.
