KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Like Mozart’s music, the workings of the brain typically are methodical, with various parts coming together to create a thought.

But when an epileptic seizure occurs, the harmony disappears.

That’s the theory behind a new project by Kansas University medical and music researchers. Using music as a metaphor for brain activity, they hope to explain to the masses what happens during a seizure.

“We want to explain how it works in a way you wouldn’t have to be a neurobiologist to understand,” said Kip Haaheim, an assistant professor of music.

Haaheim is working on the project with Deron McGee, associate professor of music, and Dr. Ivan Osorio, associate professor of neurology at the KU Medical Center and director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.

Osorio, a nationally known epilepsy researcher, came up with the idea last summer for using music to simulate brain activity.

Haaheim and McGee chose the beginning of Mozart’s “Symphony No. 40,” a familiar tune to most people.

In their arrangement, Haaheim and McGee began the piece as Mozart intended it to sound, their musical metaphor for normal brain activity.

When an epileptic seizure starts, one section of the brain begins firing signals repeatedly out of sync. The firing gradually spreads to other parts of the brain until the person is unable to function.

In the music, the composers represented the abnormal brain signals by having an oboe begin to play a repeated dissonant note while the rest of the orchestra continued to play the Mozart piece normally. Then other sections of the orchestra gradually begin playing repeated notes until, eventually, the Mozart is no longer recognizable.

After a seizure, the brain begins to return to normal, but the person is confused and disoriented. McGee and Haaheim represented that state by returning to the Mozart symphony, but having some orchestra sections start and stop the music so the pieces didn’t match.

The research is gaining attention. The KU Symphony Orchestra will record the 1 1/2-minute selection later this month for a PBS documentary being filmed by the Alliance for Epilepsy.

And Haaheim and McGee will present a paper, “Developing a Musical Metaphor to Understand Brain Functions,” in April at the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory Conference.

Haaheim said their goal is to spread knowledge of epilepsy to the non-medical community. That, they hope, will attract more funds for researching the condition. Though epilepsy affects one of every 100 people, funding is lacking, he said.

Osorio said he thought the musical selection was the beginning of a series of similar projects in the future.

“We hope the work begins to stimulate more research into the use of music, not just as a metaphor but as a model,” he said.