Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : TV Co-Host’s Voice Triggers Seizures

A neurologist reports in today’s New England Journal of Medicine that a woman got epileptic seizures by hearing the voice of “Entertainment Tonight” co-host Mary Hart. Symptoms included an upset stomach, a sense of pressure in her head and confusion, said Dr. Venkat Ramani, who reported the case. Laboratory tests confirmed that Hart’s voice triggered abnormal electrical discharges in the brain that mark an epileptic seizure, said Ramani, of New York’s Albany Medical College. “It’s the pitch and quality of the voice as a sound, rather than likely what she’s actually saying,” Dr. Marc Dichter of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School said.