What effects does Dr. Oliver Sacks believe music has on the brain?
Quantcast Oliver Sacks: Music can heal the brain Brain-imaging technology is giving increasing credence to the treatment, which is used in disorders ranging from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to autism. In the senile, music can help recall lost memories; in the speech-impaired, it can bring back words, the neurologist writes. Immobile patients may get up and dance or sing. Music may serve a role in medicine because it’s processed in multiple centers of the brain, Sacks said. Despite damage to one area, music survives in others – and may even be awakened in previously nonmusical people who suffer brain damage. In one particularly bizarre case, when nonmusical, upstate surgeon Tony Cicoria survived a lightning strike, he developed an insatiable desire to master the piano – and did. He recently performed his “Lightning Sonata” in Westport, Conn. ” Sources: ht
