Music could lead to new therapies to prevent seizures in people with epilepsy, according to a recent study.

Researchers from the Ohio State University Wexler Medical Center examined the brains of people with epilepsy and found that their brains appear to react to music differently than those who do not have the disorder, Fox News reported.

"We believe that music could potentially be used as an intervention to help people with epilepsy," said Christine Charyton, adjunct assistant professor and visiting assistant professor of neurology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

About 80 percent of epilepsy cases are what is known as temporal lobe epilepsy, in which the seizures appear to originate in the temporal lobe of the brain. Music is processed in the auditory cortex in this same region of the brain, which was why Charyton wanted to study the effect of music on the brains of people with epilepsy.

For the study, Charyton and her colleagues compared the musical processing abilities of the brains of people with and without epilepsy using an electroencephalogram, where electrodes are attached to the scalp to detect and record brainwave patterns. They collected and analyzed data from 21 patients who were in the epilepsy monitoring unit at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center between September 2012 and May 2014.

They found that significantly higher levels of brainwave activity in participants when they were listening to music. Brainwave activity in people with epilepsy tended to synchronize more with the music, especially in the temporal lobe, than in people without epilepsy.

"We were surprised by the findings," Charyton said. "We hypothesized that music would be processed in the brain differently than silence. We did not know if this would be the same or different for people with epilepsy."

While she does not believe music would replace current epilepsy therapy, Charyton said this research suggests music might be a novel intervention used in conjunction with traditional treatment to help prevent seizures in people with epilepsy.

"People with epilepsy may use the music to relax -- stress causes seizures to occur," Charyton told The Huffington Post. "We want to bring hope to persons with epilepsy and prevent seizures from occurring."

The findings were presented Sunday at the American Psychological Association's 123rd Annual Convention.