Receptive amusia due to cerebritis

Amusia is the inability to discriminate between or produce musical tones and it may be congenital or acquired. Amusia may be divided into 2 groups, receptive and expressive. The inability to recognize the different characteristics of music as it is heard is known as receptive amusia. A 45-year-old male patient was hospitalized with complaints of headache, prickling sensations in the right arm, and an inability to discriminate sound tones. On neurologic examination, he could neither completely identify changes in tone nor could he discriminate between or repeat basic or cyclic rhythms. In addition, he was unable to discriminate whether the rhythm of a song was slow or fast. Cerebral magnetic resonance imaging revealed a lesion consistent with cerebritis on the right temporal region, extending to the parietal region. The patient was diagnosed with receptive amusia, secondary to cerebritis. Copyright © 2009 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins