Transient deficit in acute stroke: a case of musical hallucinations

Abstract

We reported a case of a 62-year-old female patient affected by musical hallucinations (MHs) as a transient symptom after an ischemic stroke in the right middle cerebral artery. CT scan showed widespread cortical and subcortical hypodensity associated with moderate hemorrhage involving the lentiform nucleus, insular cortex, and caudate nucleus. The patient had no history of psychiatric disorders, hearing defects, or epilepsy. MHs appeared one week after the stroke and spontaneously vanished 10 days after their onset. From our perspective, the early activation of MHs after unilateral brain injury, and their timing of resolution, can be explained according to the “interhemispheric imbalance theory”. According to this theory, in the minutes or weeks following the onset of a focal cerebrovascular event, a series of changes in global brain connectivity occur leading to a temporary imbalance in interhemispheric excitation.