Brett R Schofield

Brett R Schofield serves as a Distinguished University Professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) within the College of Graduate Studies and Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. He joined NEOMED in 2005 as a founding member of the Hearing Research Group and has maintained continuous NIH funding since 1998 for his work on auditory neuroanatomy.

Dr. Schofield received his Honors B.A. in Biology from the University of Delaware (1981) and Ph.D. in Anatomy from Duke University (1986), followed by postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Duke. His academic journey includes teaching medical neuroscience at Duke University, the University of South Dakota, and the University of Louisville before arriving at NEOMED.

His research focuses on the functional anatomy of brain circuits that enable hearing, particularly examining how acetylcholine and GABA neurotransmitter systems contribute to selective attention, speech understanding, and neural adaptation during development, aging, and after injury. His laboratory employs traditional and viral tract-tracing techniques to investigate descending auditory pathways, cholinergic circuitry, inhibitory cell types, and the organization of inferior colliculus subclasses.

Dr. Schofield's recent publications (2018-2023) reveal a consistent focus on characterizing specific neural populations in the auditory pathway, particularly examining cholinergic inputs, GABAergic cell subtypes, and neuropeptide-expressing neurons in the inferior colliculus and related structures. His work demonstrates increasing sophistication in neural classification and connectivity mapping within the auditory system.

• CP White Research Fellowship (University of Delaware)
• James A. Shannon Director's Award (NIH)
• American Medical Women's Association Gender Equity Award (University of Louisville)
• Outstanding Faculty Research Award (NEOMED)
• NIH/NIDCD R01 DC004391 (2021-2026)
• NIH/NIDCD R01 DC018284 subaward (2020-2025)
• NIH/NIDCD R01 DC016918 (2019-2023)

As a Graduate Faculty member, Dr. Schofield teaches Medical Neuroscience to medical and graduate students, Brain Mind and Behavior to graduate students, and Current Research in Auditory Neurobiology. His laboratory, part of NEOMED's Hearing Research Focus Area, continues to investigate fundamental questions about how neural circuits process sound information, with implications for understanding hearing disorders, tinnitus, and neural plasticity.