Approximately one-third of patients with epilepsy have a drug-resistant form of the disease. But even in cases where the pharmacological treatment is effective, it is common for side-effects of anti-epileptic drugs to arise, including skin rashes, dizziness, liver damage, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive impairment, and pregnancy-associated complications.
Surgery has a good rate of success in achieving long-term remission of epilepsy symptoms, but the number of patients undergoing surgery still represents a small percentage of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy.
Therefore, alternative, non-pharmacological treatment options are sought after. Music therapy is one of them.
The “Mozart effect”
The therapeutic potential of music has been widely investigated in cognitive neuroscience. But in the specific case of epilepsy, this use of music as therapy is particularly fascinating due its dual effect.
As seen in Part 1 of the music and epilepsy diptych, on the one hand, music can induce seizures, in what is known as musicogenic epilepsy, but on the other hand, it may have a beneficial outcome, at least in some patients and with some specific melodies.
This ability of music in reducing neuronal discharges and in reducing seizures has been known for decades. The first studies used mainly pure tones or loud music stimulation to shorten the duration of seizures. But in 1998, Hughes and colleagues reported for the first time a therapeutic effect of Mozart’s music on patients with epilepsy; they demonstrated that Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K.448) exerted an acute effect on the amount of epileptic activity, both during and between seizures. They called it the “Mozart effect”.
Subsequently, various trials or case reports started using Mozart’s K.448 to reduce seizures, initially only in chronic epilepsy conditions, but recently also for acute epilepsy.
Beneficial effects of Mozart’s music have been reported even for patients who had already tried more than two types of antiepileptic drugs with no success; while drugs had failed to control their seizures, Mozart was able to significantly reduce or even completely abolish epileptic discharges.
The anti-epileptic effect of Mozart’s music has also been supported by animal studies, where it has been shown to reduce the frequency of spontaneous seizures in rats.
These studies were reviewed in a meta-analysis by Dastgheib and colleagues published in 2014 summarizing the effects of Mozart’s music on epilepsy. The authors found that 84% of the examined patients exhibited significantly reduced epileptic discharges following Mozart music therapy. Still, there have been some accounts of the opposite effect; in some cases, despite being a clear minority, Mozart’s music actually led to an increase in seizures.
But the positive effect of Mozart does not appear to be exclusive to that particular sonata. For example, recent studies have found that, in addition to Mozart’s K.448, also Mozart’s K.545 could reduce epileptic discharges.
The mechanisms of music’s effects
The mechanisms by which Mozart may act as an anticonvulsant are unknown. This effect has been attributed to fundamental elements of music such as its rhythmic structure and its lower harmonics. These characteristics may somehow activate neuronal networks by evoking neuronal patterns with anticonvulsant properties.
Continue —> Music And Epilepsy, Part 2 – Music As Therapy | Brain Blogger
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