Brains Beware of Dancehall

Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 by Flickr Music


They're calling it musicogenic epilepsy -- seizures triggered, in the case of Canadian bank employee Stacey Gayle, by Sean Paul's dancehall hip hop.

On the CBS 'Early Show,' Gayle and her doctor explained that the patient recently underwent two surgeries after suffering as many as ten inexplicable grand mal seizures a day. Once they began to believe her seizures were being caused by pop music -- in particular, the pulsing music of the Jamaican pop star -- doctors implanted about 100 electrodes into her brain to find the trouble spot. In the second procedure, they removed the electrodes – and the offending part of her brain.

Ms. Gayle, who is now epilepsy-free, was said to be one of an estimated five people worldwide beset by this extremely rare condition. We're no doctors, but we have ideas. Let's see: there's Joe Cocker ... the guy who danced with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones ... David Byrne in the 'Once in a Lifetime' video... and Amy Winehouse?

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