Victims after stroke have unusual voices

Canada has just announced the first case of a woman with a rare brain syndrome: recovering from a stroke, she began to speak in a different voice.

This woman named Rosemary lives in Southern Ontario. Her family recognized the change in her voice two years before she recovered from a stroke.

In most cases of foreign accent syndrome (FAS), the speaker has a 'foreign' accent. Rosemary's Ontario accent now sounds like Maritime Canadian English . This phenomenon arises from nerve damage in some parts of the brain.

(Photo: revolutionhealth)

Alexandre Sévigny, a cognitive scientist at McMaster University in Ontario, said: 'This is a very interesting case, because this woman has never been to Maritime, nor has she had contact with anyone with a voice East coast. Her family lineage is Ireland and Denmark, her parents have never lived anywhere other than Southern Ontario . '

For example, Rosemary says some of the audio clips are different from before the stroke, including 'dat' instead of 'that' , 'tink' instead of 'think' . Now she pronounces 'greasy' like 'gracey' , and 'dog' sounds like 'rouge' .

This confusing medical phenomenon is elucidated when the Rosemary family contacts the staff of the Stroke Unit at Hamilton General Hospital. The medical group then contacted scientists at the cognitive Language and Science program at McMaster.

The study, presented in detail in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences in July, is a new data on the phenomenon that seems very rare. However, FAS may not be fully reported, as doctors rely only on information from patients' family members about the voice change after stroke of the patient.

Researcher Karin Humphreys, who is also a psychologist at McMaster University, said Rosemary did not notice any change in her voice.

The research was funded by the Natural Science and Technology Research Council.