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<P align=justify><FONT color=#800000 size=3>This is interesting. I wonder
if the brain does similar things when speaking or cantering Hebrew. I also
wonder if this may also help explain why there if a drastic amount of fewer
Chinese people who suffer from dementia versus English-speaking people.
--Marlon<BR></FONT><BR></P>
<H2 style="FONT-SIZE: 18px; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><A
title=http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061212-020646-9101r
href="http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061212-020646-9101r">Mandarin:
Music to the brain</A></H2>
<P>IRVINE, Calif. (UPI) -- A U.S. scientist says while the left side of the
brain processes language and the right side music, when Mandarin Chinese is
heard, both sides are used. <BR><BR>University of California-Irvine researcher
Fan-Gang Zeng notes that in the English language, changes in pitch dictate the
difference between a spoken statement and question, or in mood, but the meaning
of the words does not change. That is different in Mandarin, in which changes in
pitch affect the meaning of words. <BR><BR>Zeng and colleagues studied brain
scans of people as they listened to spoken Mandarin. The scientists discovered
the brain processes the music, or pitch, of the words first in the right
hemisphere before the left side of the brain processes the semantics, or
meaning, of the information. <BR><BR>The finding, Zeng says, shows language
processing is more complex than previously thought, and it provides clues to why
people who use auditory prosthetic devices have difficulty understanding
Mandarin. <BR><BR>The study appears in the online early edition of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. </P></DIV></BODY></HTML>