(01-08-10) Damaged brains rewired by singing

by David Gutierrez, staff writer

The damaged brains of stroke patients can be "rewired" by singing, restoring
the ability to speak to patients who have lost it, according to a study
conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School and presented at the
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in
San Diego.

The findings came out of an ongoing trial in which stroke patients who have
lost the ability to speak are treated with music therapy and taught to put
words into simple melodies that they tap out with their hands. According to
Schlaug, patients who had previously been unable to form any words at all
became able to say "I am thirsty" after just one session.

Music has been used as a form of therapy for stroke patients since the
discovery that damage to the brain's speech centers did not affect the ability
to sing.

"People sometimes ask where in the brain music is processed and the answer is
everywhere above the neck," said Aniruddh Patel from the Neurosciences
Institute in San Diego.

"Music engages huge swathes of the brain - it's not just lighting up a spot in
the auditory cortex."

Speech and movement are mostly controlled from the left side of the brain,
making them vulnerable in the case of damage to that side.

"But there's a sort of corresponding hole on the right side," Schlaug said.

"For some reason, it's not as endowed with these connections, so the left side
is used much more in speech. If you damage the left side, the right side has
trouble [filling that role]."

Putting words into song, however, appears to stimulate the formation of speech
connections on the brain's right side.

"Music might be an alternative medium to engage parts of the brain that are
otherwise not engaged," lead researcher Gottfired Schlaug said.

Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8526699.
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