The Power of Singing: Implications for Brain Plasticity and Recovery of Function

A public lecture in the Distinguished Scholars Series

Each year tens of thousands of people in the United States suffer from aphasia, a devastating complication of stroke that causes severe communication difficulties. One of the few accepted treatments for severe non-fluent aphasic patients is melodic intonation therapy, a technique inspired by the clinical observation that some severely aphasic people can sing lyrics better than they can speak the same words. Dr. Schlaug will present research on melodic intonation therapy and discuss its implications for understanding plasticity in the human brain.