Playing music during operations can reduce the amount of anaesthesia required by a patient.
Experts have claimed that listening to records can also reduce the pain and ease concerns and anxieties about the surgical procedure itself.
Professor Stefan Koelsch has stressed that anaesthetic will always be needed but says that medication doses can be cut down with the aid of music.
The neuroscientist at Norway’s University of Bergen told the Instant Genius podcast: “Music can help to calm down, to reduce worries and anxieties and even to reduce pain.
“Music can reduce, for example, the amount of propofol that is needed to sedate a patient.”
The finding comes after it emerged last year that listening to music after surgery allows a person to heal faster.
A team of experts at California Northstate University College of Medicine analysed 35 existing studies on the subject and concluded that listening to music after surgery had a noticeable impact on recovery.
Patients who did so reported a 19 per cent reduction in pain levels and a three per cent decrease in anxiety.
