Certain musical elements within songs — especially when tied to emotional memories — may trigger a rare form of [epilepsy] known as musicogenic epilepsy, new research suggested…
The term musicogenic epilepsy was first coined in 1937. The condition is extremely rare, with an estimated prevalence of just 1 in 10 million. Most prior research has been limited to case reports or small studies.
Results from the new meta-analysis showed that certain auditory triggers with an emotional association to a patient’s past experience led to seizures. In addition, the studies included in the analysis identified involvement of the right temporal lobe as the most common seizure onset zone, particularly in the hippocampus.
…patients who had an emotional response, whether to the music itself or to memories it evoked, were more likely to experience a seizure…snare drums at a frequency of 1/16th or sixteenth note” had the highest likelihood of provoking seizures in the patient.
