Music and Brain: Preservation of Singing in an Aphasic Patient

WOS: 000320972700017Preservation of ability to sing in the presence of severe expressive aphasia has been known for a long time, Based on lesion studies, it is generally proposed that the right hemisphere is dominant especially for melody production. We present a 50-year-old woman with non-fluent aphasia due to left hemisphere acute infarction. If the first part of the melody was given by the examiner, she was able to sing a familiar song with text words without any musical error, where she was unable to speak the same words. 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging showed bilateral anterior temporal, bilateral mesencephalic and right deep temporal activation during the task of singing a familiar song. Hemispheric domain specificity and cerebral network in musical processing will be discussed on the basis of our findings and recent neuroimaging studies. We also emphasize that music therapies may facilitate recovery in such non-fluent aphasic patients