Light Therapy Benefits Patients With Brain Injury

In patients with traumatic brain injury, light therapy was found to be safe and had measurable effects, said researchers from the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The study was carried out by Senior investigators Rajiv Gupta, MD, PhD, director of the Ultra-High Resolution Volume CT Lab at MGH and Benjamin Vakoc, PhD, at the Wellman Center led the study, which was supported by a grant from the Department of Defense (DOD) and published in JAMA Network Open.

"For this study, we designed a practical, near-infrared treatment based on Wellman Center research and working directly with DOD on the vexing problem of TBI, a condition faced by so many," says Rox Anderson, MD, the center's director.

Another challenge was optimizing the wavelength of the near-infrared LLLT. "Nobody knows how much light you need to get the optimal effect," explains Lynn Drake, MD, one of the study co-authors and director of business development at the Wellman Center. "We tried to optimize the wavelength, dosing, timing of delivery, and length of exposure."

Near-infrared LLLT has already been used for multiple purposes until now. It has been studied in stroke patients.

Clinical Trial Details

• 68 patients with moderate traumatic brain injury were divided into two groups.
• The 1st group received LLLT, via the special helmet designed by Vakoc's team at Wellman, which delivered the light.
• The 2nd group (control) wore the helmet for the same amount of time, but did not receive the treatment.
• Two groups were tested for neuroreactivity using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics.
• They underwent neurocognitive function assessment.

Clinical Trial Outcomes

• 28 patients who completed at least one LLLT session reported no adverse reactions.
• Significant differences in myelin's integrity surrounding the neurons of treated patients versus the control group were noted.

"It would be much more difficult to see such changes in patients with mild injuries and it is quite likely that in patients with severe brain injuries the effect of light therapy would be confounded by other comorbidities of severe trauma," says Gupta. Traumatic Brain Injury

• It is the leading cause of traumatic injury worldwide.
• An estimated 69 million people experience such an injury every year.
• Annually, about 1.5 million Americans survive a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
• No proper treatments are available so far.

Source-Medindia