When the music’s over, turn out the lights. For music is our special friend, it dances on fire as it intends, music is our only friend. We’re not just saying that, enlightened minds have guessed it before scientists have proven that the brains of people with epilepsy appear to react to music in a very special manner, compared to those free of the disorder. This can lead to new therapies to prevent seizures.
Well, this is something we essentially know since the first day we open our eyes to the world, without exactly understanding what happens around. Music connects us to our inner beings and infuses our senses with calm, tranquility and peace. This could be an explanation to the fact that even if the best artists are long gone, their musical work continues to live on and feed both our minds and our spirits, setting us free from the ghosts in our brains.
Ian Curtis, the frontman from Joy Division was a famous epileptic musician and could temporarily heal from the violent seizures through music. According to recent statements coming from experts “music could potentially be used as an intervention to help people with epilepsy”. Music helps all the wounded, actually, but its first application to epilepsy is enthusiastically saluted. Therapies with music are completely harmless. Music shows no harmful side effects but instead immerses our bodies and souls in calmness.
Of course this doesn’t apply to all kinds of music. If sounds have a commercial etiquette, they compromise profoundness and authenticity. According to the new research, patients with epilepsy perceive only certain types of music, such as that of Mozart and Coltrane, differently from people who are completely healthy. What’s fascinating is that the brainwaves of epileptic patients seem to work in harmony with the composer’s music.
Findings were based on a study which involved 21 epileptic patients who were monitored in a special medical center from September 2012 to May 2014. To strengthen relevance, researchers have also chosen a group of people who didn’t have the disorder. Both groups were exposed to two kinds of audio: silence and masterpieces of Mozart and Coltrane. Each participant was exposed to music and silence at certain intervals, although the order was random. Brainwave patterns were monitored through electrode pads attached to their heads.
Brain behavior in epileptic patients was more synchronized with the music. The explanation for that is that 75% of epileptic seizures occur in the temporal lobe of the brain, which is the same region responsible for auditory sensory. For some of us, it took centuries, for others, it takes the minute they breathe out their mother’s womb. Music is the healer. It helps prevent epileptic seizures and it keeps the spirits free.
Image Source: behance.net
