An Italian woman suddenly started speaking English with a Canadian accent, leaving specialists stumped

• An Italian woman suddenly had a Canadian accent when she spoke English, leaving specialists stumped.
• Brain scans didn't appear to reveal any obvious changes to her brain.

An Italian woman suddenly started speaking English with a Canadian accent, and specialists couldn't figure out why, according to a report.

The woman, 50, went to the emergency room after a five-minute period when her speech became slurred and she couldn't write properly, scientists working in Italy said in a report published in the medical journal Neurocase on January 22.

Those symptoms got better, but when doctors assessed the woman they noticed she was speaking with a Canadian accent.

The woman, who spoke Italian as her first language and English as the second, had used both at work for 20 years, including with Canadian colleagues, though she'd never had that accent herself, the researchers said.

A team of specialists including psychologists, neurologists, and speech therapists diagnosed her with foreign accent syndrome, a rare phenomenon characterized by the emergence of an accent that has never been native to the person and is considered foreign by the patient and health professionals.

As Insider previously reported, foreign accent syndrome can occur after a stroke or in people with cancer, but the science of how or why it happens is poorly understood.

The woman had brain scans in the ER and didn't appear to have brain damage causing it. The report authors said that it was possible that the woman had microscopic brain damage that was too small to be detected on a brain scan, or a mini stroke.

Case reports tend to shed light on rare and unexpected symptoms, but more research is usually needed to support the findings.

In this case, the woman spoke with a "strong and distinct" Canadian accent for at least eight months after she left hospital.

The researchers don't fully understand FAS' cause but hope that the report adds to a small, but growing, body of research.