10 months ago a bullet penetrated Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ brain and left her in critical condition. The injury forced the medical teams in charge of her recovery to use a lessor known method for growing neurological pathways: music therapy.

The injury Giffords sustained resulted in aphasia – the inability to speak because of damage to the language pathways in her brain’s left hemisphere. By over laying words on top of  rhythm and melody Giffords trained her brain to use a newer pathway to the same destination.

Dr. Nancy Helm Estabrooks,  a  speech pathologist at West Carolina University – and other experts, go on to describe the rehabilitation process in this ABC News interview.