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Staff Profile

Dr Will Sedley

Wellcome Trust Clinical Career Development Fellow

Background

I am a medical graduate, combining clinical practice in neurology with research in clinical and basic neuroscience.

I graduated from Nottingham University in 2007, and have been working as a doctor and conducting research in Newcastle ever since, completing my PhD in 2015, and commencing my first NHS consultant post in 2021.

Research

My group's research focuses on high-level perceptual processing mechanisms in the brain, with a particular focus on hearing, and related disorders such as tinnitus and hyperacusis. We have also begun to focus on how alterations in perceptual mechanisms relate to, and might underpin, conditions such as migraine, and intolerance of uncertainty. I am interested in how our brains make predictions based on past and recent experience, and reconcile these with incoming input from our sensory organs to deterime what we actually infer and perceive about the environment.

My current core research programme is funded by the Wellcome Trust, focusing on the intensity of sensory stimuli and its perceptual correlate (e.g. the loudness of sound). I am particularly interested in whether, and how, the processing of intensity is governed by the same type of predictive processing as other sensory attributes (such as pitch, colour and duration), or whether there are fundamental differences. These questions are highly pertinent to common and unsolved clinical conditions including tinnitus, hyperacusis and chronic pain. 

Our research is conducted on human volunteers, with and without clinical conditions, and uses a range of neuromaging measures including EEG, MEG, fMRI and direct electrode recordings.

I am also supervising PhD students, masters and undergraduate students, and a postdoctoral researcher. One project, currently underway, is focused on trying to measure abnormal sound predictions underlying tinnitus by measuring EEG responses to specific types of sounds. Another other project is studying the transition from new-onset (acute) tinnitus into longstanding (chronic) tinnitus by making repeated measurements of sound responses and brain activity over time. We are also running a project on interoceptive perception in migraine, and a one on the relationship between perceptual predictions and intolerance of uncertainty.

My previous research has used non-invasive and direct human brain recordings to expose the normal brain processes associated with making predictive inference during perception, and to see how these processes are perturbed in association with tinnitus. This work has led to a novel, and contemporary, theoretical model of tinnitus, which has inspired my ongoing work.

I have also published a theoretical model to explain the 'cause' and 'purpose' of migraine, which has previously been a great mystery in neuroscience and clinical neurology.

I am very grateful to the range of funding bodies who have made this work possible, including: Wellcome Trust, RNID, Tinnitus UK (formerly British Tinnitus Association), Academy of Medical Sciences, Masonic Charitable Foundation, National Institute for Health Research, and the Medical Research Council. Similarly, I am grateful to my many current and previous collaborators in Newcastle, London and Iowa.

Teaching

I regularly provide clinical teaching to medical students, junior doctors and allied health professionals.


My current role does not feature any formal teaching, but previously I have taught on a number of courses related to my research areas.

Publications