Adrian Rees is Reader in Auditory Neuroscience at Newcastle University. He gained a BA in Physiological Sciences and DPhil from the University of Oxford (Keble College) and spent three years as Staines Medical Research Fellow at Exeter College. After postdoctoral study as a Harkness Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh and at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham, he was appointed to a lectureship in Physiological Sciences at Newcastle. He is currently a member of the University's Institute of Neuroscience where he researches the brain mechanisms that underlie hearing, and teaches in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. Alan Palmer received his first degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Birmingham UK in 1972 and his PhD in Communication and Neuroscience from the University of Keele UK in 1977. After three years as a postdoctoral researcher at Keele he established his own neurophysiological laboratory at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. This was followed by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the University of Sussex before taking a program leader position at the Medical Research Council Institute for Hearing Research in 1986. He heads a research team that uses neurophysiological and neuroanatomical techniques to study the way the brain processes sound. He is currently Deputy Director of the Institute and has responsibility for major technical developments. He also holds a Special Professorship in neuroscience at the University of Nottingham UK.