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By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer
Sat Feb 20, 4:35 pm ET
SAN DIEGO Words and music, such natural partners that it seems obvious they
go together. Now science is confirming that those abilities are linked in the
brain, a finding that might even lead to better stroke treatments.
Studies have found overlap in the brain's processing of language and
instrumental music, and new research suggests that intensive musical therapy
may help improve speech in stroke patients, researchers said Saturday at the
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In addition, researchers said, music education can help children with
developmental dyslexia or autism more accurately use speech.
People who have suffered a severe stroke on the left side of the brain and
cannot speak can sometimes learn to communicate through singing, Gottfried
Schlaug, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School told the
meeting.
"Music making is a multisensory experience, activating links to several parts
of the brain," Schlaug said.
Schlaug showed a video of one patient who could only make meaningless sounds
learning to say "I am thirsty," by singing the words, and another was able to
sing "happy birthday."
"If you have someone who is nonverbal and they can say they are hungry or
thirsty or ask where the bathroom is, that's an improvement," Schlaug said of
the Melodic Intonation Therapy.
As long as a century ago there were reports of stroke victims who couldn't talk
but who could sing, he said. Now, they are doing trials to see if music can be
used as a therapy.
But, he cautioned, the work is geared toward people who have had a severe
stroke on the left side of the brain and the therapy can take a long time.
Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern
University, reported that new studies show that musical training enhances the
brain's ability to do other things.
For example, she said, the trained brain gets better at detecting patterns in
sounds, so that musicians are better at picking out the voice of a friend in a
noisy restaurant.
"Musical experience improves abilities important in daily life," she said.
"Playing an instrument may help youngsters better process speech in noisy
classrooms and more accurately interpret the nuances of language that are
conveyed by subtle changes in the human voice," Kraus said.
When people first learn to talk and when they talk to babies they often use
musical patterns in their speech, she noted.
"People's hearing systems are fine-tuned by the experiences they've had with
sound throughout their lives. Music training is not only beneficial for
processing music stimuli. We've found that years of music training may also
improve how sounds are processed for language and emotion," Kraus said in
prepared remarks.
Kraus said "the very responses that are enhanced in musicians are deficient in
clinical populations such as children with developmental dyslexia and autism."
New studies of brain waves, she noted, mimic the patterns of sound that the
individual hears. Whether speech or instrumental music is heard, it is actually
possible to record the brain's electronic waves and play them back to hear the
sound which she demonstrated with a series of recordings.
Aniruddh D. Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego said new studies
show that music doesn't involve just hot spots in the brain, but large swaths
on both sides of the brain.
"Nouns and verbs are very different from tones and chords and harmony, but the
parts of the brain that process them overlap," he said.
Some scientists, among them Charles Darwin, have speculated that musical
ability in humans might have developed before language, Patel said.