Sounds, Seizures, and the Brain

Abstract

This brief review examines the effect of noise on the brain. While it is fairly well established that excessive noise can cause hearing damage, there has been evidence that sound can also trigger seizures and cause traumatic brain injury. Animals exposed to loud sounds develop different behavioural characteristics. Audiogenic and music genic seizures, traumatic brain injury from loud noises, such as fire alarms, and elevation in biomarkers for traumatic brain injury, as a result of exposure to sound have been documented. These observations show that sound and noise have can have a substantive impact on the brain and more research done in this area would be helpful in understanding hearing deficits, seizure disorder, as well as traumatic brain injury