Left-sided stroke victims are often left with a debilitating speech disorder. Yet many can sing entire pieces of text fluently.

Singing is thought to activate areas of the right hemisphere which can pinch hit for the stroke-damaged left side of the brain.

Recent research from the Max Planck Institute has found, however, that it's not the singing that matters. It's the rhythm. And if the lyrics are familiar the stroke sufferer finds it even easier to speak them. The research appears in the journal Brain.

Scientists had 17 stroke victims attempt to pronounce thousands of syllables which were sung and recited with either rhythmic or non-rhythmic accompaniment. The lyrics were either very familiar or unfamiliar.

Just speaking the words in a rhythmic fashion was just as effective as singing. Even more important, however, is familiarity of the text. Scientists speculate that speaking commonly known phrases or singing very familiar songs might tap into different, possibly uninjured, parts of the brain than spontaneous speech does.

These results might put the source of success for singing therapies into question. But further studies are needed before therapists decide to change their tune.

在這里輸入譯文 大多數大腦左半球中風患者都會留下語言障礙的后遺癥，但是其中有很多人能夠通順的唱完一整首完整的文字。

這種現象以前被認為是刺激了大腦右半球，活躍的右半球又刺激了大腦左半球而引起的。

馬克斯普朗克學院最近的發現證明，這個現象和唱歌沒有關系。問題的關鍵在于節奏。如果對歌詞很熟悉，那么這個中風患者讀起來就更容易。這項研究刊登在《大腦》雜志上。

科學家讓17個中風患者發出幾千個音節，這些音節可以被唱出來，也可以帶著伴奏或不帶伴奏背出來；歌詞是原來熟悉的，也可以是以前沒見過的。

帶著節奏讀出來的單詞像唱歌一樣流暢。更重要的是對文章的熟悉程度。科學家推測讀出認識的短語或唱出熟悉的歌曲也許和沒受傷的那部分大腦功能相似，但絕對同于普通人自然地說話。

這些結果可能會使音樂療法的一些成果來源受到質疑。但是在音樂療法者改變他們的態度之前需要有更深入的研究來提供證明。