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Can music help people with epilepsy?

Date:

August 9, 2015

Source:

American Psychological Association (APA)

Summary:

The brains of people with epilepsy appear to react to music differently from the brains of those who do not have the disorder, a finding that could lead to new therapies to prevent seizures, according to new research.

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The researchers found significantly higher levels of brainwave activity in participants when they were listening to music. More importantly, brainwave activity in people with epilepsy tended to synchronize more with the music, especially in the temporal lobe, than in people without epilepsy.

Credit: © Stepan Popov / Fotolia

The brains of people with epilepsy appear to react to music differently from the brains of those who do not have the disorder, a finding that could lead to new therapies to prevent seizures, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's 123rd Annual Convention.

"We believe that music could potentially be used as an intervention to help people with epilepsy," said Christine Charyton, PhD, adjunct assistant professor and visiting assistant professor of neurology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, who presented the research.

Approximately 80 percent of epilepsy cases are what is known as temporal lobe epilepsy, in which the seizures appear to originate in the temporal lobe of the brain. Music is processed in the auditory cortex in this same region of the brain, which was why Charyton wanted to study the effect of music on the brains of people with epilepsy.

Charyton and her colleagues compared the musical processing abilities of the brains of people with and without epilepsy using an electroencephalogram, where electrodes are attached to the scalp to detect and record brainwave patterns. They collected data from 21 patients who were in the epilepsy monitoring unit at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center between September 2012 and May 2014.

The researchers recorded brainwave patterns while patients listened to 10 minutes of silence, followed by either Mozart's Sonata in D Major, Andante Movement II (K448) or John Coltrane's rendition of My Favorite Things, a second 10-minute period of silence, the other of the two musical pieces and finally a third 10-minute period of silence. The order of the music was randomized, meaning some participants listened to Mozart first and other participants listened to Coltrane first.

The researchers found significantly higher levels of brainwave activity in participants when they were listening to music. More important, said Charyton, brainwave activity in people with epilepsy tended to synchronize more with the music, especially in the temporal lobe, than in people without epilepsy.

"We were surprised by the findings," said Charyton. "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."

While she does not believe music would replace current epilepsy therapy, Charyton said this research suggests music might be a novel intervention used in conjunction with traditional treatment to help prevent seizures in people with epilepsy.

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by American Psychological Association (APA). Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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American Psychological Association (APA). "Can music help people with epilepsy?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 August 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150809092837.htm>.

claustrum :: Neurosurgeons find small brain region that turns consciousness on and off, like the key in a car's ignition

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Neurosurgeons find small brain region that turns consciousness on and off, like the key in a car's ignition

The 54-year-old epilepsy patient - her name remains concealed to protect her privacy - was lying on the operating table while surgeons explored inside her brain with electrodes. They were looking for the source of her epileptic seizures. Suddenly, after they applied electricity to a small region, buried deep, near the front of the brain, the woman froze and her eyes went blank. She was awake, but entirely unresponsive.

The precise area the surgeons had zapped included a sliver of tissue known as the claustrum, which is part of a network that supports awareness.Mohamad Koubeissi and his colleagues state that nobody has ever examined the effects of stimulating this specific brain region before, despite this kind of surgical procedure having been performed for decades. Just as geographers still surprise us with reports of having discovered previously unchartered parts of the earth, it takes one aback to hear of unexplored areas of neural terrain.

Intrigued by the woman's response to the stimulation of this specific brain region, the surgeons investigated further. Ten further stimulations, and on every occasion zapping the claustrum had the same effect. By contrast, zapping an area just 2.7mm away did not.

Perhaps the woman was simply paralysed by the electrical stimulation? The effects are more intriguing than that. If given an instruction prior to the stimulation, such as words to utter or movements to make, she continued this for a few seconds after the stimulation began, but then descended into still, unresponsive stupor. It was also striking to observe that as soon as the stimulation ended, the woman regained consciousness. However, she had no memory of the preceding moments during the stimulation period.

The researchers also examined the synchronisation of activity across the brain during the stimulation of the claustrum. They found that it increased synchronisation across the brain, possibly to a debilitating level. If so, this would match the situation observed in epileptic seizures that trigger loss of consciousness.

Caution is required - after all, this is a single case study, and the patient in question was missing part of one hippocampus, removed during earlier treatment for epilepsy. Nonetheless this is an intriguing finding. "... [T]he disruption of consciousness that we herein describe has never been precipitated by electrical stimulation of any other site in the human brain," the researchers said.

Speaking to New Scientist magazine, lead author Koubeissi likened the claustrum to a car's ignition. While both the brain and the car are made up of many functioning parts, "...there's only one spot where you turn the key and it all switches on and works together," he told them. "So while consciousness is a complicated process created by many structures and networks - we may have found the key." If these results can be replicated, the hope is that stimulation of the claustrum may offer a way to treat disorders of consciousness associated with epileptic seizures.

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Mohamad Z. Koubeissia, Fabrice Bartolomei, Abdelrahman Beltagy, Fabienne Picard. (2014). Electrical stimulation of a small brain area reversibly disrupts consciousness.  Epilepsy & Behavior Volume 37, August 2014, Pages 32–35

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.