Perception of music and speech prosody after traumatic brain injury

The present study aimed to examine the perception of music and prosody in patients who had undergone a severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Our second objective was to describe the association between musical and prosodic impairments in clinical individual presentations. Thirty-six patients who were out of the acute phase underwent a set of musical and prosodic tests: two sub-tests of the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia evaluating respectively melody (scale) and rhythm perception, two sub-tests of the Montreal Evaluation of Communication on prosody understanding in sentences, and two other tests evaluating prosody understanding in vowels. Forty-two percent of the patients were impaired in the melodic test, 51% were impaired in the rhythmic test and 71% were impaired in at least one of the four prosodic tests. The amusic patients performed significantly worse than non-amusics on the four prosodic tests. This descriptive study shows for the first time the high prevalence of musical deficits after severe TBI. It also suggests associations between prosodic and musical impairments, as well as between linguistic and emotional prosody impairments. Causes of these impairments remain to be explored.