But there's still no cure for the monotony of Top 40 radio stations …
In another not-so-surprising “fuck you” to big pharmaceutical companies, researchers of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center something, something big name, released findings that suggest music may be able to help treat epilepsy — a sudden blast of brain activity which overloads the organ, often resulting in debilitating seizures.
Participants of the study were ordered to listen to a few tunes with intermittent silence in between. Per the results, all participants unsurprisingly responded with increased brain activity to the music, but those with epilepsy show a greater “synchronization” with the music in certain brain lobes than others without the disorder.
"We knew that musicians synchronize more with music, but we were not sure how persons with epilepsy would respond," the study’s co-author Christine Charyton tells Medical News Today. "Persons with epilepsy synchronize before a seizure. However, in our study, patients with epilepsy synchronized to the music without having a seizure."
The team thinks music can be used to calm the almost 2.9 million children and adults in the U.S. before seizures happen — as stress and other outside factors can induce an episode. While it’s not sure exactly at what point the synchronization takes place, Charyton adds that the team is moving forward with the results to see if music — along with existing treatments — can help stop seizures before they begin.
To clarify, listening to any one of the radio stations in town and hearing the same Taylor Swift song four times within an hour while having the sudden urge to throw oneself through a double-pane window is not the same thing as having a seizure. That’s what doctors would probably call stress, yes, but has nothing to do with the disease, and everything to do with the industry having no sense of creative integrity.
Totally different situations, though we hope a cure can be found for both …
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