We all know the effects music can have on us emotionally, therapeutically, motivation and so on. Now researchers at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have found that music also has a unique effect associated with epilepsy – musical brainwave synchronisation.

The idea to experiment the effect of music on those with epilepsy came to Christine Charyton, PHD, on the knowledge that 80% of epilepsy seizures originate in the auditory cortex of the brain, the part that processes music.

The experiment involved an electroencephalogram which tracked brain activity as patients listened to two pieces of music separated by 10 minutes of silence. Patients with and without epilepsy listened to My Favorite Things by John Coltrane and Mozart’s Sonata in D Major.

The findings showed that all patients had higher levels of brainwave activity when listening to music, as expected, but interestingly patients with epilepsy were more likely to have their brainwaves synchronise with the music.

When a seizure occurs a persons brain synchronises with itself and they lose consciousness. Dr Charyton said of the study: “What happens instead is that they’ll listen to the music, and we had John Coltrane and Mozart, and they ended up, their brain synchronised with the music in the temporal lobe. We think that the music may be highly effective, in our study,nobody had a seizure when listening to the music or during the entire study.”

It’s not yet known whether this discovery could aid seizures for those with epilepsy but the studies look promising, and who wouldn’t want to be prescribed music as your medicine.