Dr. Bruce L. Miller is a distinguished leader in the field of behavioral neurology and dementia research who holds the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professorship in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. He serves as Director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center where patients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area receive comprehensive clinical evaluations under his leadership. As the founding director of the Global Brain Health Institute at UCSF, Dr. Miller has established himself as a visionary in global brain health initiatives with a career dedicated to advancing the understanding and treatment of neurodegenerative disorders. His professional journey has been defined by a commitment to delivering model care to all patients entering clinical and research programs at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center.
Dr. Miller is a world-renowned expert in frontotemporal dementia having made seminal contributions to distinguishing various neurodegenerative diseases particularly in separating Alzheimer's disease from frontotemporal dementia. His groundbreaking research emphasizes both the behavioral and emotional deficits that characterize FTD patients while simultaneously documenting the visual creativity that can emerge in the disease setting. As principal investigator of the NIH-sponsored Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and the program project Frontotemporal Dementia Genes Imaging and Emotions he has pioneered innovative approaches to understanding the genetic and molecular underpinnings of dementia. His work has fundamentally shifted clinical paradigms by demonstrating that early-onset behavioral issues often seen as psychological disorders are instead related to specific brain circuit abnormalities.
Beyond his research achievements Dr. Miller has been instrumental in developing precision medicine collaborations through leadership of the Tau Consortium and the Bluefield Project to Cure Frontotemporal Dementia which focus on developing treatments for tauopathies and progranulin-mediated forms of FTD. He oversees a comprehensive healthy aging program that includes an innovative artist-in-residence initiative highlighting the strengths of aging rather than solely focusing on decline. As an educator Dr. Miller runs the Behavioral Neurology Fellowship at UCSF and mentors more than 50 foreign scholars annually cultivating the next generation of neurology leaders. His recent co-authored book Mysteries of the Social Brain Understanding Human Behavior Through Science reflects his ongoing commitment to translating complex neuroscience into accessible knowledge while his work with the Global Brain Health Institute continues to reduce the scale and impact of dementia worldwide through evidence-based policy and practice.
