Listening to music may be beneficial to people who suffer from epilepsy, a new study suggests.
The study, which was presented last Sunday at the American Psychological Association by Ohio State University researchers, described people who have epilepsy — compared to people who don't — displayed different brainwave patterns on brain tests when listening to music.
The initial finding could someday pave way to new preventive therapies for seizures.
The idea of music came to Christine Charyton, PHD, when she considered that 80 percent of the cases of epileptic seizures start from the particular region in the brain where music is processed, which is the auditory cortex.
For the study, the team of researchers monitored the electrical activity of patients who were listening to music or sitting in silence.
The music used for the experiment were Mozart's "Sonato for Two Pianos in D Major, Andante Movement II" and John Coltrane's rendition of "My Favorite Things."
All patients, those who have or don't have the disorder, were found to have more electrical activity in their brains when music is played compared to a period of silence.
"We hypothesized that music would be processed in the brain differently than silence. We did not know if this would be the same or different for people with epilepsy," Charyton said in a news release, according to Fox News.
A more surprising finding was also seen among epileptic patients. Electrical activity in their brains appeared to have synchronized with the music, especially for temporal lobe seizures.
Based on their findings, researchers suggest that music can one day be used as therapy for epilepsy patients, in addition to conventional treatments that prevent seizures.
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders. According to Epilepsy Foundation, an estimated 48 out of 100,000 people in the United States will experience epilepsy each year.
