Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Singing 'rewires' damaged brain
BBC News: "By singing, patients use a different area of the brain from the area involved in speech. If a person's 'speech centre' is damaged by a stroke, they can learn to use their 'singing centre' instead."
3 comments:
Sonia
said...
I find this article really interesting. I never would have thought that the brain would engage in singing more readily than speaking. I personally love to sing and 'Music engages huge swathes of the brain' makes so much sense because its a a whole sensory experience, or at least thats how I feel. It also makes sense that people repond to music so naturally, because as we were talking in a class the other day, when babies are played a song in the womb and then replayed that song after they are born in comparison to another song even by the same artist, they will always be drawn to the one they heard before. Music is an incredibly strong force that helping people who cant communicate to speaak is terrific
It is interesting that something so often cast off as emotional, and relatively unimportant is so useful in something as scientific as this. It seems incredible that singing would be used in order to get back the ability to produce speech. As Sonia said, the fact that music uses such a great part of the brain, especially when compared with speaking, seems a bit surprising at first. But how wonderful it is that something so beautiful is also so powerful.
This is absolutely fascinating. My friend's grandfather recently had a stroke and his having trouble with speech. I'm forwarding this email to her. This actually makes sense though. It also explains why people with stutters can sing without stuttering. This kind of thing absolutely fascinates me. I love neuroscience stuff. I wonder how they figured this out. It would also be interesting to know whether they can be trained to speak without singing later.
3 comments:
I find this article really interesting. I never would have thought that the brain would engage in singing more readily than speaking. I personally love to sing and 'Music engages huge swathes of the brain' makes so much sense because its a a whole sensory experience, or at least thats how I feel. It also makes sense that people repond to music so naturally, because as we were talking in a class the other day, when babies are played a song in the womb and then replayed that song after they are born in comparison to another song even by the same artist, they will always be drawn to the one they heard before. Music is an incredibly strong force that helping people who cant communicate to speaak is terrific
It is interesting that something so often cast off as emotional, and relatively unimportant is so useful in something as scientific as this. It seems incredible that singing would be used in order to get back the ability to produce speech. As Sonia said, the fact that music uses such a great part of the brain, especially when compared with speaking, seems a bit surprising at first. But how wonderful it is that something so beautiful is also so powerful.
This is absolutely fascinating. My friend's grandfather recently had a stroke and his having trouble with speech. I'm forwarding this email to her. This actually makes sense though. It also explains why people with stutters can sing without stuttering. This kind of thing absolutely fascinates me. I love neuroscience stuff. I wonder how they figured this out. It would also be interesting to know whether they can be trained to speak without singing later.
Post a Comment