Staff Profile
Professor Adrian Rees
Professor of Auditory Neuroscience
- Email: adrian.rees@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 6956
- Address: Biosciences Institute
Faculty of Medical Sciences
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4HH
Background
I graduated from Oxford University (Keble College) with a BA in Physiological Sciences and continued there, first as a postgraduate student, supervised by Roy Kay and Gary Green, to gain my DPhil, and later as Staines Medical Research Fellow at Exeter College. I left to spend two years as a Harkness Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh where I worked with Aage Møller on the encoding of frequency and amplitude modulated sounds by single neurons in the midbrain. On my return to the UK, I continued this research with Alan Palmer at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham before being appointed to a lectureship in Physiological Sciences at Newcastle. I am currently in the Biosciences Institute where I am Professor of Auditory Neuroscience.
Appointments
2013 - date Professor of Auditory Neuroscience, Newcastle University
2004-2013 Reader in Auditory Neuroscience, Newcastle University
1998 Visiting Professor, University of Salamanca
1997-04 Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
1988-97 Lecturer in Physiology Sciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
1985-88 Auditory Physiologist, MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham
1983-85 Harkness Fellow & Visiting Professor, Dept of
Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh
1980-83 Staines Medical Research Fellow, Exeter College, Oxford
Esteem Factors
Joint winner of the 2010 George Davey Howells Memorial Prize for the Oxford Handbook of Auditory Science, a 3 volume survey of hearing science. Co-editor of Vol 2, The Auditory Brain.
Grant panel member for Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID)
Societies
Association for Research in Otaryngology; British Neuroscience Association; Physiological Society; Society for Neuroscience
Hearing is vital for survival in many animal species, and it underlies those most distinctively human attributes - speech and music. The brain pathway that underlies hearing consists of a complex chain of processing centres running from the brainstem to the cortex. I research how these centres are organised and their role in sound processing by applying a diverse range of techniques, from recording and labelling single neurons through functional imaging to psychophysics in humans. I am a member of the Newcastle Auditory Group and collaborate with other members of the Group and the Institute in my research, as well as with colleagues in other centres in the UK and in Spain.
A main focus of my lab is the functional organisation of the auditory midbrain, the inferior colliculus. This paired structure is the centre where information from lower brainstem centres converges. We have explored how sound frequency is mapped within it, and, by blocking receptors for neurotransmitters on the neuronal scale, how excitatory and particularly inhibitory synapses determine the responses of its neurons. Inhibitory mechanisms play a major role in the inferior colliculus, and upsetting the balance of inhibition is implicated as a cause of tinnitus. Currently, we are addressing how the inferior colliculi operate in tandem in processes such as sound localisation through the application of techniques that allow us to inactivate the bundle of fibres that interconnects them.
A second emphasis in my research is how modulations in the amplitude and frequency of sounds are extracted and encoded. These temporal fluctuations are fundamental features of natural sounds, such as vocalisations. The information they contain plays an important part in our ability to identify sounds and to separate one sound from another when many competing sounds occur together. Information about modulation is one of the main sounds attributes available to cochlear implant users. Our analysis of the responses of neurons in the midbrain to such sounds shows that neurons are selective for specific ranges of modulation rate, and recently my colleagues and I have shown using fMRI that modulation rate, as well as sound frequency, is mapped in the inferior colliculus.
An interest that has developed from my work on hearing is how the senses of hearing and vision interact. Such interactions are exemplified by illusions in which what you see changes what you hear, as for example, in the McGurk effect and ventriloquism. But these interactions are not just party tricks; lip reading makes an important, but often unnoticed, contribution to speech perception under adverse listening conditions, even more so for those with hearing impairment. With my colleague Quoc Vuong, I am exploring the processes that underlie such phenomena by studying the ways vision and hearing combine to influence the ways subjects perceive changes in objects and sounds.
Undergraduate Teaching
- PSC 1001 Physiology (lecturer)
- PSC 3008 Physiology of the Nervous System (module leader & lecturer)
- PSC 2012 Integrated Physiology (lecturer)
- MBBS Stage 2 Thought, Senses and Movement (lecturer)
- MBBS Accelerated Programme (lecturer)
- CMB 3000 Biomedical Sciences Project (supervisor)
Postgraduate teaching
MMB8019 MRes Sensory Systems (lecturer)
Teaching related duties
I am deputy chair of the Physiological Sciences Curriculum Committee and on the Board of Studies and Board of Examiners for Biomedical Sciences
- Vuong QC, Laing M, Prabhu A, Tung HI, Rees A. Modulated stimuli demonstrate asymmetric interactions between hearing and vision. Scientific Reports 2019, 9, 7605.
- Olthof BMJ, Rees A, Gartside SE. Multiple non-auditory cortical regions innervate the auditory midbrain. Journal of Neuroscience 2019, 39(45), 8916-8928.
- Rees A, Orton LD. Unifying the Midbrain: The Commissure of the Inferior Colliculus. In: Kandler, K, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Auditory Brainstem. Oxford University Press, 2018.
- Poirier C, Baumann S, Dheerendra P, Joly O, Hunter D, Balezeau F, Sun L, Rees A, Petkov CI, Thiele A, Griffiths TD. Auditory motion-specific mechanisms in the primate brain. PLoS Biology 2017, 15(5), 1-24.
- Gretenkord S, Rees A, Whittington MA, Gartside SE, Lebeau FEN. Dorsal vs. ventral differences in fast Up-state-associated oscillations in the medial prefrontal cortex of the urethane-anesthetized rat. Journal of Neurophysiology 2017, 117(3), 1126-1142.
- Orton L, Papasavvas C, Rees A. Commissural Gain Control Enhances the Midbrain Representation of Sound Location. Journal of Neuroscience 2016, 36(16), 4470-4481.
- Vuong QC, Parikh JD, Laing M, Blamire AM, Rees A. Visual modulation of auditory discrimination correlates with GABA in parietal multisensory area. In: Organisation of Human Brain Mapping OHBM 2016 Annual General Meeting. 2016, Geneva: Organization for Human Brain Mapping.
- Laing M, Rees A, Vuong QC. Amplitude-modulated stimuli reveal auditory-visual interactions in brain activity and brain connectivity. Frontiers in Psychology 2015, 6, 1440.
- Pearson F, Mann KD, Rees A, Davis A, Pearce MS. The Effect of Childhood Infection on Hearing Function at Age 61 to 63 Years in the Newcastle Thousand Families Study. Ear and Hearing 2015, 36(2), 185-190.
- Baumann S, Joly O, Rees A, Petkov CI, Sun L, Thiele A, Griffiths TD. The Topography of Frequency and Time Representation in Primate Auditory Cortices. eLife 2015, 4, e03256.
- Orton LD, Rees A. Intercollicular commissural connections refine the representation of sound frequency and level in the auditory midbrain. eLife 2014, 3, 1-17.
- Pearson F, Mann KD, Nedellec R, Rees A, Pearce MS. Childhood infections, but not early life growth, influence hearing in the Newcastle thousand families birth cohort at age 14 years. BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders 2013, 13, 9.
- Palmer AR, Shackleton TM, Sumner CJ, Zobay O, Rees A. Classification of frequency response areas in the inferior colliculus reveals continua not discrete classes. Journal of Physiology 2013, 591(16), 4003-4025.
- Orton LD, Poon PWF, Rees A. Deactivation of the inferior colliculus by cooling demonstrates intercollicular modulation of neuronal activity. Frontiers in Neural Circuits 2012, 6, 100.
- Baumann S, Griffiths TD, Sun L, Petkov CI, Thiele A, Rees A. Orthogonal representation of sound dimensions in the primate midbrain. Nature Neuroscience 2011, 14(4), 423-425.
- Liu JD, Perez-Gonzalez D, Rees A, Erwin H, Wermter S. A biologically inspired spiking neural network model of the auditory midbrain for sound source localisation. Neurocomputing 2010, 74(1-3), 129-139.
- Baumann S, Griffiths TD, Rees A, Hunter D, Sun L, Thiele A. Characterisation of the BOLD response time course at different levels of the auditory pathway in non-human primates. NeuroImage 2010, 50(3), 1099-1108.
- Overath T, Kumar S, Stewart L, von Kriegstein K, Cusack R, Rees A, Griffiths TD. Cortical Mechanisms for the Segregation and Representation of Acoustic Textures. Journal of Neuroscience 2010, 30(6), 2070-2076.
- Nasimi A, Rees A. Regularly firing neurons in the inferior colliculus have a weak interaural intensity difference sensitivity. Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology 2010, 196(12), 889-897.
- Rees A, Palmer AR, ed. The Auditory Brain. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Malmierca MS, Hernández O, Antunes FM, Rees A. Divergent and Point-to-Point Connections in the Commissural Pathway Between the Inferior Colliculi. Journal of Comparative Neurology 2009, 514(3), 226-239.
- Coote EJ, Rees A. The distribution of nitric oxide synthase in the inferior colliculus of guinea pig. Neuroscience 2008, 154(1), 218-225.
- Hernandez O, Rees A, Malmierca MS. A GABAergic component in the commissure of the inferior colliculus in rat. NeuroReport 2006, 17(15), 1611-1614.
- Malmierca MS, Hernandez O, Rees A. Intercollicular commissural projections modulate neuronal responses in the inferior colliculus. European Journal of Neuroscience 2005, 21(10), 2701-2710.
- Rees A, Malmierca MS. Processing of dynamic spectral properties of sounds. International Review of Neurobiology: Auditory Spectral Processing 2005, 70, 299-330.
- Rees A, Langner G. Temporal Coding in the Auditory Midbrain. In: Winer, J.A., Schreiner, C, ed. The Inferior Colliculus. New York: Springer, 2005, pp.346-376.
- Joris PX, Schreiner CE, Rees A. Neural processing of amplitude-modulated sounds. Physiological Reviews 2004, 84(2), 541-577.
- Witton C, Simpson MIG, Henning GB, Rees A, Green GGR. Detection and direction-discrimination of diotic and dichotic ramp modulations in amplitude and phase. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2003, 113(1), 468-477.
- Millman RE, Green GGR, Lorenzi C, Rees A. Effect of a noise modulation masker on the detection of second-order amplitude modulation. Hearing Research 2003, 178(1-2), 1-11.
- Malmierca MS, Hernandez O, Falconi A, Lopez-Poveda EA, Merchan M, Rees A. The commissure of the inferior colliculus shapes frequency response areas in rat: An in vivo study using reversible blockade with microinjection of kynurenic acid. In: Experimental Brain Research: Scientific Meeting on Central Auditory Processing - Integration with Other Systems. 2003, Ascona, Switzerland: Springer.
- Bal R, Green GGR, Rees A, Sanders DJ. Firing patterns of inferior colliculus neurons-histology and mechanism to change firing patterns in rat brain slices. Neuroscience Letters 2002, 317(1), 42-46.
- LeBeau FEN, Malmierca MS, Rees A. Iontophoresis in vivo demonstrates a key role for GABAA and glycinergic inhibition in shaping frequency response areas in the inferior colliculus of guinea pig. The Journal of Neuroscience 2001, 15, 7303-7312.
- LeBeau FEN, Malmierca MS, Rees A. Iontophoretic studies in the inferior colliculus in vivo demonstrate a key role for GABA and glycine receptor mediated inhibition in shaping frequency response areas. Journal of Neuroscience 2001, 21(18), 7303-7312.
- Lorenzi C, Simpson MIG, Millman RE, Griffiths TD, Woods WP, Rees A, Green GGR. Second-order modulation detection thresholds for pure-tone and narrow-band noise carriers. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2001, 110(5), 2470-2478.
- Thornton SK, Rees A. The dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus shapes auditory responses in the inferior colliculus. In: Breebart, DJ; Houstma, AJM; Kohlrausch, A; Prijs, VF; Schoonhoven, R, ed. Physiological and psychophysical bases of auditory function: proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Hearing. Maastricht: Shaker Verlag, 2001, pp.298-305.
- Griffiths TD, Dean JL, Woods W, Rees A, Green GGR. The Newcastle Auditory Battery (NAB): A temporal and spatial test battery for use on adult naïve subjects. Hearing Research 2001, 154(1-2), 165-169.
- Talcott J, Witton C, McClean M, Hansen PC, Rees A, Green GGR, Stein JF. Dynamic sensory sensitivity and children's word decoding skills. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 2000, 97(6), 2952-2957.
- Talcott JB, Witton C, McLean MF, Hansen PC, Rees A, Green GGR, Stein JF. Dynamic sensory sensitivity and children's word decoding skills. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2000, 97(6), 2952-2957.
- Griffiths TD, Green GGR, Rees A, Rees G. Human brain areas involved in the analysis of auditory movement. Human Brain Mapping 2000, 9(2), 72-80.
- Griffiths TD, Green GGR, Rees A, Rees G. Human brain areas involved in the analysis of auditory movement. Human Brain Mapping 2000, 9(2), 72-80.
- Witton C, Green GGR, Rees A, Henning GB. Monaural and binaural detection of sinusoidal phase modulation of a 500-Hz tone. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2000, 108(4), 1826-1833.
- Chinnery PF, Elliott C, Green GR, Rees A, Coulthard A, Turnbull DM, Griffiths TD. The spectrum of hearing loss due to mitochondrial DNA defects. Brain 2000, 123(1), 82-92.
- Talcott JB, Witton C, McClean M, Hansen PC, Rees A, Green GGR, Stein JF. Can sensitivity to auditory frequency modulation predict children's phonological and reading skills?. NeuroReport 1999, 10(10), 2045-2050.
- Griffiths TD, Rees A, Green GGR. Disorders of human complex sound processing. Neurocase 1999, 5(5), 365-378.
- Griffiths TD, Rees A, Green GGR, Rees G. FMRI investigation of sound-movement analysis. NeuroImage 1999, 9(6), S791-.
- Rees A., Sarbaz A., Malmierca M.S. and Le Beau F. Regularity of spike discharge in the inferior colliculus. Journal of Neurophysiology 1997, 77, 2945-2965.
- Rees A. Sensory maps: aligning maps of auditory and visual space. Current Biology 1996, 6, 955-958.
- Le Beau F., Rees A. and Malmierca M.S. The contribution of GABA- and glycine mediated inhibition to the monaural temporal response properties of neurons in the inferior colliculus. Journal of Neurophysiology 1996, 75, 902-919.
- Malmierca M.S., Le Beau F. and Rees A. The topographical organisation of descending projections from the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus. Hearing Research 1996, 93, 167-180.