Jul

A few weeks ago, I went to hear a concert by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (part of their Russian/American festival). The music was pretty spectacular, and halfway through the third piece (Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra by John Corigliano — seriously intense), I started thinking about a book written by one of my favourite writers (also a neuroscientist), Oliver Sacks. The book, called Musicophilia, explores the ways that music affects, and interacts with, the human brain. About the brains of musicians, Sacks points to research that shows that corpus callosum, which connects the brain’s two hemispheres, is bigger in professional musicians. And people with absolute pitch (they can name a note immediately after hearing it) have an asymmetric enlargement in a part of the auditory cortex. Sacks writes, “Anatomists today would be hard put to identify the brain of a visual artist, a writer or a mathematician — but they could recognize the brain of a professional musician without a moment’s hesitation.”

And then there’s the chapter that really resonated with me, about music and aphasia. One of my dearest, most beloved family members has aphasia, which comes from a Greek word meaning “speechless” and is the loss of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language. Sacks opens the chapter with an anecdote that compounds the extraordinary power of music:

Samuel S. developed severe expressive aphasia following a stroke in his late sixties, and he remained totally speechless, unable to retrieve a single word, despite intensive speech therapy, two years later. The break for him came when Connie Tomaino, the music therapist at our hospital, heard him singing one day outside her clinic — he was singing “Ol’ Man River” very tunefully and with great feeling, but only getting two or three words of the song. Even though speech therapy had been given up with Samuel, who was by then regarded as “hopeless,” Connie felt that music therapy might be helpful. She started to meet with him three times a week for half-hour sessions in which she would sing with him or accompany him on the accordion. Mr. S. was soon able, singing along with Connie, to get all of the words of “Ol’ Man River,” and then many of the other ballads and songs he had learned growing up in the 1940s — and as he did this, he started to show the beginnings of speech. Within two months, he was making short but appropriate responses to questions. For instance, if one of us asked Mr. S. about his weekends at home, he could reply, “Had a great time,” or “Saw the kids.”

For more, watch this video of Sacks talking about music therapy and its unbelievable impact on people with Parkinson’s disease:

(If you can’t see the video above, click this link to watch it on YouTube.)

Healthwise