When music is lost in the brain: the strange case of the Opera singer

In everyday life, we often speak and sing. On the one hand, we use our ears not only to listen to words, but also to appreciate melodies. On the other hand, we use our mouth both for speaking and singing. Therefore, one might think that speaking and singing are mental activities implemented in similar brain circuits. Nevertheless, it seems that things are different, as suggested by the results of neuropsychological studies on patients with brain injuries.

We know, for example, that aphasic patients, who suffer from severe difficulties in speaking, can easily sing the very same words that they cannot say. Conversely, amusic patients, who lose their ability to process music, can speak fluently and correctly.

The neuropsychological loss of the sense of music (amusia) is a very curious phenomenon, but it becomes striking when the patient is a music professional. We studied the case of a professional opera singer who, following a stroke in the right side of her brain, lost both the ability to identify operas and the ability to sing them. Despite her severe difficulties with music, the patient remained perfectly capable of performing many mental tasks, such as performing complex actions, reading, writing, speaking, remembering, and thinking.

Our patient's case -the first ever reported of an opera singer affected by amusia- suggests that our brain is not a single, large, indistinct information processor. Instead, our brain functions through specialized circuits. It appears that the "house" of music is located in the right side of our brain, whereas that of language is located in the left side.

Read more: Priftis, K., & Giordano, B. L. (2026). Pure global amusia in a professional opera singer. Neurological Sciences, 47(5), 414. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-026-08976-8