A cancer patient in the United States developed an “uncontrollable Irish accent” during treatment, despite never having visited Ireland and having no close relatives from the country.
Researchers in the US said the development was consistent with Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).
According to a study published in the British Medical Journal, the man in his 50s was being treated for prostate cancer by doctors from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, when he began speaking in an “Irish brogue accent” for the first time in his life.
The man had friends and distant relatives from Ireland and had lived in England while he was in his 20s, but he had never gone to Ireland and had never spoken with an Irish accent.
“He had no neurological examination abnormalities, psychiatric history or MRI of the brain abnormalities, at symptom onset”, according to the study, which was jointly done by researchers from North Carolina’s Duke University and the Carolina Urologic Research Center of South Carolina.
Despite chemotherapy, his cancer worsened, metastasizing to his brain and leaving him paralysed, which ultimately caused his death.
Doctors discovered that the so-called paraneoplastic brain condition that manifested as his immune system battled the cancer was the most likely reason for the speech alteration.