Dr. Mozart

Photo: Isaac Ibbott / Unsplash

Thanks to Nancy Cox, friend of the OZ family, for sharing a recent study that discusses the effect of music on the brain.

This new research supports previous studies that suggest listening to Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K448)” can help epilepsy patients who do not respond to medication. That specific song seems to reduce the spikes of electrical activity in the brain that can lead to seizures.

It all sounds a little goofy, like the spurious claim that listening to Beethoven can make babies smarter. Nonetheless, the effect is real. Researchers first put forth this theory 30 years ago, but that research has been nearly impossible to replicate with other pieces of music, so no one knows exactly why it works.

This new research seems to move a step closer to an answer; the team asserts that patients must be exposed to the music for at least 30 seconds, and they also have discovered evidence that the musical structure of the piece and the emotional response it creates may play a role.

Even the lead author isn’t sure what to make of all this, admitting the research raises more questions than answers. He does believe there is something about a sudden change in the tempo of a song violates expectations and therefore contributes to a calming of the brain. His long-term goal is to isolate even more variables in the music and create a kind of “brain-calming genre” of music specifically for the management of epilepsy.