Singing, Improve Brain Damage from Stroke

One of the four stroke patients experiencing language disorders, which involves the ability to speak, write, and understand the language spoken and written. This happens when the left brain is damaged.

In the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, United States, a team of Harvard researchers say, capable of singing activity "connect" returned the damaged brain. With singing, other parts of the brain associated with language centers will be activated.

Gottfried Schlaug, a professor of nerves from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, says, when "language centers" in the brain damaged by stroke, in fact we can use the brain in the "song center".

In clinical trials conducted the part of the brain known to respond to therapy 'melodic intonation' which made the experts. Actually, this therapy has long done, especially for stroke patients who could not speak, but can sing.

"This is the first study that combines the melodic intonation therapy with brain imaging to show what actually happens in the brain as patients learned to sing the words," Schlaug said.

Area of the brain that has functions to control the movement and hearing mostly located in the left side of the brain. "However, there are some that relate to the right side of the brain. For some reason, the connection may not happen so that the left brain is more widely used for speech and language," Schlaug said.

If the left is damaged, the right also has a problem. However, if patients say the words with the melody, this can create a relationship between the left and right brain. Previous research showed through brain imaging, the professional singer, "the center singing" has grown more rapidly.

Post-stroke patients trained to intone the difficult words to pronounce in a tone melody. Patients are also trained to tapping by hand every syllable word. "Music may be the most effective medium for connecting parts of the brain that are not connected," he said.