MILO DE PRIETO

What is a Neurocognitive Strategist & Creative Developer?

WHAT

I do

As a neurocognitive strategist I work with how the brain creates meaning. My research and applied work examine the processes that allow the brain to organize experience—through narrative, emotion, perception, memory, regulation, and learning—and translate them into systems that people can use.

As a creative developer I use artistic practice to investigate and build those systems. My art—writing, film, design, and interactive installations—functions as a research method. It reveals how meaning is formed, how identity becomes coherent, and how divergence becomes ability.

This combination is tech transfer: moving theory into tools, frameworks, curricula, environments, and creative works that support real cognitive development and quality of life. Everything I design—whether a residency, a learning progression, or a conceptual installation—emerges from this integration of neuroscience, cognition, and art.

My Theories & Research

My work is driven by a single conviction: quality of life is grounded in our biology.

The human brain has structural needs—sleep, rhythm, focus, belonging, and meaning. When these needs are met, people experience clarity, stability, and creative capacity.  When neglected, no amount of wealth or success can compensate. My passion is to design systems—educational, artistic, organizational—that make these needs visible and achievable in daily life.

Neural Coherence Ecology (NCE)

is a theory and model that demonstrates that the brain a
is an interdependent ecosystem. It describes four interacting infrastructures—rhythmic regulation, activation, cognitive patterning, and synchrony—that together sustain wellbeing. NCE shows how coherence emerges from equilibrium rather than willpower, and how environments can either support or destabilize that equilibrium. It is the foundation of my applied work because it makes quality of life measurable, practical, and teachable.

Functional Coherence & The Neurodivergent Protocol

Grounded in NCE, Functional Coherence describes four neurological functions—Focus Navigation, Cognitive Composition, Emotional Harmony, and Drive Alignment—and how they operate as a unified system. When these functions synchronize, a person experiences coherence; when one falters, the whole system strains.

The Neurodivergent Protocol translates this model into daily practice. It is not diagnostic. It provides strategies and structures that help people understand their cognitive patterns, reduce friction, and build stability. Although designed with neurodivergent individuals in mind, its logic supports anyone seeking sustainable wellbeing.

The Purpose Throughline

clarifies how a person’s cognitive identity shapes their direction and success. It begins with the Narrative Imperative, the nature of how the brain makes meaning only through emotionally weighted narrative to form patterns of interpretation and produce the choices that guide a life. Because this cycle never stops, it must be made conscious or it defaults to habit rather than intention.

The Purpose Throughline makes this process explicit. It connects an individual’s cognitive identity through to their capabilities and to the work they pursue, forming a developmental discipline: articulate purpose, understand strengths, and translate both into consistent action. When the Throughline is coherent, authenticity emerges naturally; without it, people drift, lose direction, or appear misaligned.

Not only do individuals need this developmental skill but so do teams and organizations need it to connect purpose to execution and growth. It is the foundation for meaningful work because it turns the brain’s meaning-making into deliberate, accountable navigation.

For most individuals I develop this into The Purpose Profile, for artists it’s the Artist’s Lens Profile, and for organizations and projects it is The Identity and Positioning Atlas.

Conceptual Thinking

 is the capacity to understand how ideas, systems, and experiences connect. It is meaning-based problem solving: the ability to interpret complexity, see implications, and design solutions that hold up across contexts.

Procedural thinking focuses on executing known methods. Conceptual thinking organizes the structures that make those methods make sense. Both are valuable. Conceptual thinking is developmental and can be taught at any age with proper scaffolding.

This skill underlies all my applied work—in literacy, numeracy, curriculum design, DRIVEN, artist development, and cognitive coaching—because it supports transfer, coherence, and adaptive problem solving. It gives learners of any age the ability to work with complexity rather than be overwhelmed by it.

Learning Progressions

Learning Progressions Theory extends the proven methodologies of language and numeracy acquisition to all domains. It shows that every field is built from micro-skills that combine to form more advanced abilities. By mapping the micro-skills explicitly, we can understand how competence develops and identify missing foundations. 

Learning Progressions integrates Dynamic Systems Theory to design instruction that aligns with each learner’s cognitive identity as human development is nonlinear. The resulting methodology engages each individual’s unique prior knowledge, capacity, and motivation to shape their developmental tempo. Learning Progressions Theory makes learning visible and actionable: educators can scaffold growth in ways that respect the individual architecture of each mind.

DIVERGENTE

is the creative expression of my research and work in Neural Coherence Ecology and Biolinguistic Creativity. It defines three divergences of structural human variation: Gender/Sex Divergence, Neurodivergence, and Socio-Sexual Divergence.

These divergences are windows into how identity, cognition, and desire shape human existence and reveal human potential, the next stages of human evolution.

Together they form a cycle, not a hierarchy. This is modeled in the Divergence Triad—a rotating three-color ring that represents identity, cognition, and relation as an interdependent system. The triad appears across my work as a visual and conceptual device.

DIVERGENTE is a body of art. Projects such as hi(e)r explore how desire, perception, and being are event horizons. My art functions as a phenomenological study of coherence and divergence. It is not separate from my research; it is one of its methods.

WHY

I started ARTESIAN

ARTESIAN is a living academy—part method, part movement—built to turn cognition, culture, and restorative intelligence into environments, tools, and programs that make life truly livable. I launched it to work in consortium with other passionate builders, so my research doesn’t sit on a shelf: it becomes residencies, curricula, products, and spaces that run, test, evolve, and scale.

HOW

I got here

I have spent over three decades studying how the brain makes meaning and applying that knowledge in education, creative practice, organizational development, and artistic research.

My work spans:
– teaching and curriculum development across K–12 and university
– literacy and numeracy frameworks grounded in learning science
– school leadership and teacher development
– cognitive-based tools for higher education and emerging technologies
– media, creative direction, and narrative design
– fine art, film, and installation as research practices
– tech transfer: turning theory into systems that people can use

Whether working with students, artists, institutions, or teams, I build environments and frameworks that help people engage their own cognitive architecture with clarity and purpose.

HOW

To collaborate with me

I collaborate with researchers, institutions, artists, and organizations exploring meaning-making, creativity, and human development.

My work often takes the form of:
– research partnerships
– artistic collaborations and exhibitions
– cognitive-design residencies (DRIVEN ART)
– development of learning frameworks or conceptual systems
– institutional or team-wide coherence design
– contributions to projects aligned with divergence, identity, or creative cognition

ARTESIAN, DRIVEN, DRIVEN ART, and DIVERGENTE are the primary vehicles for this work. Each initiative transforms research into environments where people can understand themselves more clearly and build lives grounded in coherence, creativity, and real possibility.

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