Scott Adams, Rewiring the brain and Speech
Scott Adams of “Dilbert fame spoke about his Good News Day. Having been afflicted with Spasmodic Dysphonia has limited his ability to speak. Anway .. he’ll explain better.
I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia.
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The weirdest part of this phenomenon is that speech is processed in different parts of the brain depending on the context. So people with this problem can often sing but they can’t talk. In my case I could do my normal professional speaking to large crowds but I could barely whisper and grunt off stage. And most people with this condition report they have the most trouble talking on the telephone or when there is background noise. I can speak normally alone, but not around others. That makes it sound like a social anxiety problem, but it’s really just a different context, because I could easily sing to those same people.
This sounds pretty freaky.
I never really thought about what part of the brain you use to sing, speak publically, hold conversation or any other utterance. More amazingly is how he ended up training his brain to readjust. Considering that his doctor stated that no one recovers from this condition, this an interesting outcome.
Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.
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It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech.
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Then something happened.
My brain remapped.
My speech returned.
While this isn’t quite as amazing as The guys whose brain rewired after 20 years in a coma, it still seems to indicate (not with a huge statistical base) that the brain can be retrained to work. I’m just an interested amateur in this stuff, I am just intrigued that these kind of phenomena occur.