Case of singing seizure using syllable names

Neurologist. 2011 Jan;17(1):28-30. doi: 10.1097/NRL.0b013e3181fa13fb.

Abstract

We report a case of a patient with singing seizures, who was able to sing familiar songs by syllable name with no earlier practice. The patient was a 56-year-old musically naive woman who developed singing seizures when she was in her early 20s. She suddenly began singing familiar sacred songs by syllable name, even though she had never practiced the songs using a musical score or had earlier sung them by syllable name. An electroencephalogram showed bilateral low-voltage spikes that were significantly pronounced in the right temporal lobe. Technetium-99m-bicisate ethyl cysteinate dimer single photon emission computed tomography also showed hypoperfusion in the medial right temporal lobe. The right temporal lobe may be involved in singing, and there may be an automatic and unconscious analytical system of music perception that arranges each tone into its syllable name.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Auditory Perception / physiology
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Cysteine / analogs & derivatives
  • Cysteine / metabolism
  • Electroencephalography
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language*
  • Middle Aged
  • Music*
  • Organotechnetium Compounds / metabolism
  • Radiopharmaceuticals / metabolism
  • Seizures / diagnostic imaging
  • Seizures / physiopathology*
  • Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon

Substances

  • Organotechnetium Compounds
  • Radiopharmaceuticals
  • technetium Tc 99m bicisate
  • Cysteine