Contact Information
Research Interests
Neuroscience; Mammalogy; Evolution
Research Description
My research aims to interrogate the structure and function of the cortical column as it varies across sensory systems in order to map noninvasive biomarkers of functional areas and to study the mechanisms of plasticity.
The Miller Lab uses an integrative strategy that combines measurements from multiple scales of organization to investigate the evolution and plasticity of the fundamental building block of the mammalian cerebral cortex, the cortical column. We leverage advanced computational methods to integrate measurements of brain structure and function from the level of single-cell genomics and deep-learning morphometrics through single-unit receptive field mapping to macroscale parcellation and tractography using ultra high field (9.4T, 7T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to create multidimensional maps of the brain. We are interested in understanding the fundamental organization of the cerebral cortex as a laminated aspect of the mammalian brain in order to develop and validate the biomarkers of neurophysiological organization that are needed to identify diseased from healthy tissue, and to map evolutionary processes over time.
Education
2011-2017: Vanderbilt University
2009–2011: The George Washington University
2003-2007: Saint Louis University
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior
Assistant Professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Recent Publications
The PsychENCODE Consortium, & Miller, D. J. (2021). Neuronal and glial 3D chromatin architecture informs the cellular etiology of brain disorders. Nature communications, 12(1), Article 3968. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24243-0
Stepniewska, I., Friedman, R. M., Miller, D. J., & Kaas, J. H. (2020). Interactions within and between parallel parietal-frontal networks involved in complex motor behaviors in prosimian galagos and a squirrel monkey. Journal of neurophysiology, 123(1), 34-56. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00576.2019
Miller, D. J., Bhaduri, A., Sestan, N., & Kriegstein, A. (2019). Shared and derived features of cellular diversity in the human cerebral cortex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 56, 117-124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2018.12.005
Zhu, Y., Sousa, A. M. M., Gao, T., Skarica, M., Li, M., Santpere, G., Esteller-Cucala, P., Juan, D., Ferrández-Peral, L., Gulden, F. O., Yang, M., Miller, D. J., Marques-Bonet, T., Kawasawa, Y. I., Zhao, H., & Sestan, N. (2018). Spatiotemporal transcriptomic divergence across human and macaque brain development. Science, 362(6420), Article 1267. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat8077
BrainSpan Consortium, PsychENCODE Consortium, & PsychENCODE Developmental Subgroup (2018). Integrative functional genomic analysis of human brain development and neuropsychiatric risks. Science, 362(6420), Article 1264. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat7615