Direct and indirect effects of red and near infrared light

Water and light…

In the last blog post, I told you about an excellent article called How and why does photobiomodulation change brain activity.

An ardent reader would know that I tend to wax lyrical about the way that red and near infrared light works directly and indirectly on the cell batteries, the mitochondria. The mitochondria contain special proteins that are able to respond to the light pulse. Some of these proteins are quite famous, like cytochrome c oxidase, which has been well studied and probably has its own fan club.

But guess what. Even if there is no cytochrome c oxidase present, mitochondria still respond to light.

Mitochondria in your blood

Mitochondria get a lot of airplay in this blog. (Here’s an early post.)

The mitochondrial experts of the world have been blown away by new research. It seems that our blood not only contains the various sorts of red and white cells, but it also contains nomadic mitochondria.

This is amazing! Here’s why.

It really does work…

I can understand the skepticism about the biological effect of red lights, because that’s where I started from. It seemed too good to be true. However, there is a wealth of excellent quality research out there, and the evidence is compelling that red and near infrared lights protect existing neurones, and can stimulate new neurones to be created, stimulate blood vessels to increase connections- neuroprotection, neurogenesis and angiogenesis.

Brain cells

When I went to medical school, the belief was that you got your full quota of brain cells at birth. It was downhill from there, and you entered old age with not many brain cells left.

What a joy it is to know that this belief is a load of rubbish.

Here is a great article, summarising recent research on the birth of new brain cells during our lives.

It is a reminder that you use your brain or you lose it, so lifelong learning stimulates the birth of new brain cells.

I can recommend learning a musical instrument – you can do it at any age. Making music on your own instrument really makes your brain work, whether you are a beginner or an old hand at it.

And use your Eliza, Cossack or Coronet each day. Red and near infrared light stimulates the birth of new brain cells.

Red lights preserve brain cells…and make more of ‘em

Prof John Mitrofanis gave an excellent presentation today to clinicians at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

He took the audience through the ten plus years of research into red lights and Parkinson’s in animal models.

Pulsing light and Alzheimer’s disease

I’ve been reading articles suggesting that Alzheimer’s disease is linked with a disruption of brain wave patterns, especially the gamma waves which are predominant in the brain when we are concentrating and focussed.

One group increased gamma wave activity in Alzheimer’s mice by pulsing light. In this research, it wasn’t the light that was of interest to the researchers, it was the pulse rate. They used 40Hz, in the gamma brainwave frequency range.

Here is a great report about that experiment and it’s implications.

…stimulating neurons to produce gamma waves at a frequency of 40 Hz reduces the occurrence and severity of several Alzheimer’s-associated symptoms in a mouse model of the disease.

It seems that pulsing the light does more than enable red light to penetrate more deeply into the brain. Pulsing at 40Hz seems to stimulate the brain’s immune and clean-up cells, the microglia to get cracking with brush and pan.

I have visions of microglial cells dancing to the 40 Hz rhythm as they clear up brain rubbish, including the proteins that accumulate in Alzheimer’s – amyloid and tau.

In 40Hz pulsed red light, the brain gets the benefits of the red light action inside the cells, and the benefits of brain-protection activities stimulated by brainwaves responding at 40Hz.

Fascinating stuff, isn’t it.

Meanwhile, if you are feeling worried that your Eliza or Cossack doesn’t pulse, don’t fret. The daily light dose is doing its work. More.