Scientists Create Lullabies From Brain Waves

Aug. 28 -- Some time ago I had a record album that seemed magical. It put me to sleep within minutes.

Now, it turns out that it may not have been magic at all, but science.

Researchers at the University of Toronto's sleep clinic have found that the human brain creates its own internal music, and that same music can be used to fight a common problem that affects millions of people across the continent: anxiety insomnia.

By playing their own "brain music" back to them, researchers were able to get persons with sleeping disorders to fall asleep more quickly, and to sleep more soundly, according to psychiatrist Leonid Kayumov, director of the clinic.

Of course, this "music," which consists of an audible "printout" of sleep-inducing brain waves, doesn't exactly sound like Barry Manilow, and you can't buy it at your local record store.

‘Odd’ Lullaby

"It sounds odd," Kayumov says. "You wouldn't recognize it as music. Sometimes there are harmonic frequencies, sometimes it's total cacophony." Sometimes, he adds, it sounds a little like Chinese, sometimes it sounds a little like a melody.

"I find some people have nicer music," he says.

But each of us produces our own brain music, and each is different.

Kayumov, who discussed his clinic's research at a recent annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Society in Seattle, says up to 40 percent of the general population suffers from some kind of insomnia, and most of those problems "may be related to stress anxiety." Balancing the checkbook, or dealing with a problem at work or home, may keep us from falling asleep in the evening, or cause us to wake up a long time before the alarm clock goes off.

Kayumov and his colleagues excluded people from the study who have severe neurological disorders that keep them awake, and concentrated instead on ordinary folks who have trouble sleeping. Ten persons who had suffered from insomnia for at least two years were selected for the study, and they were taken into the lab in the university's Western Hospital and hooked up to a portable device that zeroes in on brain waves.