A team of researchers from the University of Arizona published a study in the journal Neurobiology of Disease about early morning blue light exposure therapy that can help aid the healing process of people who are impacted by mild traumatic brain injury.
A psychiatry professor in the College of Medicine and lead author of the study, William D. Scott Killgore, stated that the daily exposure to blue wavelength light every morning can help re-entrain the circadian rhythm so that people get better and they get more regular sleep. This is true for everybody, but they recently demonstrated it in people who are recovering from mild traumatic brain injury, or mTBI. That improvement in sleep was then translated into improvements in cognitive function, reduced daytime sleepiness, and improved actual brain repair.
Causes of concussion
Concussions or mTBIs, are usually the result of fights, falls, car accidents and sports participation. Among other threats, military personnel can also experience concussions from exposure to explosive blasts as shockwaves strike the soft tissue of their gut and it pushes a burst of pressure into their brain, it then causes microscopic damage to their blood vessels and their brain tissues, according to Killgore.
Those who have concussion can momentarily see stars, they become disoriented or they even briefly lose consciousness following the injury. But the loss of consciousness does not always happen and there are many people who sustain a concussion yet they are able to walk it off without even realizing that they have a mild brain injury, according to Killgore. Attention problems, headaches, and mental fogginess are commonly reported after head injuries and can persist for weeks or even months for some people. Additionally, 50% of people with mTBI also complain that they have sleep issues after they suffer an injury.
Effects of sleep in the brain
Numerous researches have shown that our brain repairs itself during sleep, so Killgore and his co-authors, Bradley Shane, John Vanuk, Sahil Bajaj and Mareen Weber, all from the Department of Psychiatry, sought to know if improved sleep led to a faster recovery.
In clinical trials that were randomized by experts, adults with concussions used a cube-like device that shines bright blue light at the participants from their tables or desks. They did this for 30 minutes every morning for 6 weeks straight. The control groups were then exposed to bright amber light.
Killgore stated that the blue light suppresses the brain production of a chemical called melatonin. He said that you do not want melatonin in the morning because it can make you drowsy and it can prepare your brain to sleep. When you are exposed to blue light in the morning, it can shift your brain's biological clock so that in the evening, your melatonin will kick in earlier and it can help you to fall asleep and even stay asleep.
As a result of the blue light treatment, the participants fell asleep and they woke an average of one hour earlier than before the trial and they were less sleepy during the daytime. The participants improved their speed and their efficiency in brain processing and it showed an increase in volume in the pulvinar nucleus, which is an area of the brain that is responsible for visual attention. Neural connections and communication flow between the other parts of the brain that drive alertness and the pulvinar nucleus, this strengthened the cognition of the participant.
Killgore and his colleagues plan to continue their research to see if blue light can help improve sleep quality and how light therapy might affect psychiatric and emotional disorders. Killgore believes that most people, whether they are healthy or injured, could benefit from correctly timed early morning blue light daily exposure. It is a theory that he hopes to prove for certain in future studies.
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