Foreign Accent Syndrome is Real, Researchers Reveal from Prostate Cancer Patient

Changing accents or speech patterns may be widely accepted in the media world, especially as actors and actresses use this tactic to fill in a role in their latest blockbuster or series. However, in terms of medicine, this is a serious case called "Foreign Accent Syndrome" (FAS), as exhibited by a person undergoing prostate cancer treatment.

The change in accents is not exactly a neurological disease, but a dysfunction caused by different reasons, leading to the use of an uncontrollable new accent, akin to the world's tongues.

Foreign Accent Syndrome Manifests in a Man with Prostate Cancer

A study published in the BMJ Case Reports journal last month looked into what causes Foreign Accent Syndrome to manifest in a person. In this case, the researchers from Duke University studied a man in his 50s who suffered from metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, also receiving medications and treatments for it.

The man was receiving androgen deprivation therapy and abiraterone acetate/prednisone to treat his battle against cancer.

However, along the way, without any background in Irish English, began speaking with an "Irish brogue" accent. Despite the scans and MRI, there were no present abnormalities in the man.

His prostate cancer progressed to small cell neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), leading to his death.

The researchers claimed that "We report FAS as the presenting manifestation of transformation to small cell NEPC, a previously undescribed phenomenon. His presentation was most consistent with an underlying paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND)."

"This report enhances the minimal existing literature on FAS and PNDs associated with transformed NEPC." they added.

Why Does Foreign Accent Syndrome Appear?

According to Interesting Engineering, FAS manifests due to excess stress, unusual prosody, voice errors, and more.

In the case of the deceased man with prostate cancer, there was brain damage that manifested which led to this neurological dysfunction of changing accents, an immune response to cancer he suffered from in his lifetime.

Foreign Accent Syndrom Cases

There are people in the world who were speaking in their native tongues and accents one day, and the next time there is an encounter with them, it is like talking to a whole other person. This is the infamous Foreign Accent Syndrome which alters a person's speech pattern due to severe or extreme conditions, leading to neurological dysfunction.

Previous cases report that there was a British woman who woke up one day and started speaking with a Chinese accent, and this is not because she was being racist.

This is also the same case with Michelle Myers from Arizona, who despite having no roots in her genes or traveling to the United Kingdom, woke up one day after a severe headache and sounding like a local British person.

Some may use this and have the capability to turn this on or off when switching between roles, but some are suffering because of it because it comes as an uncontrolled pattern in their speech. There are reasons why people manifest FAS in their life, and one of the most recent studies centered on a deceased person who battled prostate cancer.