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This arti­cle pre­vi­ously appeared in the jour­nal Species Link (Win­ter 2008 issue), the pro­fes­sional jour­nal of ani­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tors. The col­umn was Voice of the Expert, and I wrote this response to a ques­tion from an ani­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tor who was con­cerned because a client thought that ani­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion could trig­ger seizures.

Dear Fel­low Practitioner:

I have spent some time study­ing brain dis­or­ders, both when I ran a neu­ro­feed­back clinic, and work­ing with a doc­tor doing brain maps (Quan­ti­ta­tive EEG type). Many of my patients had seizure dis­or­ders, both from known causes (e.g. head injuries) and from unknown causes. The Epilepsy Foun­da­tion says that 70% of seizures are from unknown causes. Also, even the most potent anti-​​seizure med­ica­tions are not 100% effec­tive, so the dog hav­ing “. . . been drugged for x-​​rays ear­lier in the day, so he almost couldn’t have a seizure” is not nec­es­sar­ily true. A typ­i­cal ani­mal anes­thetic for doing x-​​rays is not the drug of choice for pre­vent­ing seizures, and may have only a tiny effect on seizures, if at all. The med­ica­tion the dog received may only have caused a tem­po­rary sleep state, since dur­ing X-​​rays there are no inva­sive pro­ce­dures requir­ing deeper anes­the­sis. It would be good to check with the vet about this and get some informed clarification.

How a seizure looks elec­tri­cally: When you look at the brain map of a seizure, it shows chaotic and extra pow­er­ful (in volt­age) brain wave spikes. When you look at the brain map dur­ing con­ver­sa­tion of sev­eral types, both ver­bal, and non-​​verbal or tele­pathic con­ver­sa­tion, there is a dif­fer­ent pat­tern. The brain waves are finely mod­u­lated, with both rhyth­mic and vari­able aspects, but still orderly, both in ampli­tude and in phys­i­cal loca­tions in the brain. I hope this will help you under­stand how dis­sim­i­lar seizures and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are, in the brain. Also, mul­ti­ple seizures in a short period of time are not uncom­mon, and the first one that day hap­pened before your ses­sion. It is clear to me that the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the seizure were co-​​incident, that is, hap­pen­ing at the same time, not causal.

How the brain is safe: The skull is a pretty good insu­la­tor. The dif­fer­ence in the volt­age of brain­waves inside the skull vs. what can be mea­sured out­side the skull is pretty big, about a thou­sand times more volts inside than out­side. But the amount of volt­age in sta­tic elec­tric­ity (the kind you get in your hair when you rub it with a bal­loon) is over 1 mil­lion times the volts inside your brain (which uses volt­age in a very del­i­cate and fine-​​tuned way). The sta­tic elec­tric­ity in your hair does not “pen­e­trate your brain”. So it is highly unlikely that any­thing you could do dur­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, with your brain, which is 1 mil­lion times less elec­tri­cally pow­er­ful than sta­tic elec­tric­ity, would be able to cause a seizure in the dog. [Please read more of this arti­cle by click­ing the link after the dona­tion button.]

© Denise Schultz 20o7

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