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Stanford Professors Translate Seizure Activity Into Music

People who sustain a severe TBI sometimes develop epileptic seizures – either temporarily or permanently. Have you ever wondered what a seizure sounds like? To do that you have to find a way to listen to the patient’s neuronal circuitry when it fires normally in synchronous rhythm and when it fires abnormally in asynchronous rhythm. Well, this has now been done. Josef Parvizi, a neurologist at Stanford Medical Center, teamed up with Chris Chafe, a professor of music research at Stanford who is one of the world’s foremost experts in “musification,” the process of converting natural signals into music.Together they were able to convert EEG signals from a seizure patient’s brain into music resembling a human voice. When you listen to the music it is truly astounding how well you can grasp what is happening in the brain and how much empathy you feel for the patient. This is an amazing breakthrough.

To listen to the musical representation of a real seizure on Youtube follow this link http://youtu.be/n0T2uB-GLc8