Summary
Light exposure timing, intensity, duration, and wavelength are critical parameters for resetting circadian rhythms, with early-night light causing phase delays and late-night/early-morning light causing phase advances. These principles can be applied to optimize light therapy for circadian sleep disorders, shift work adaptation, and jet lag recovery.
Key Findings
- Early biological night light exposure produces phase-delay shifts; late biological night and early morning light exposure produces phase-advance shifts of circadian rhythms.
- Circadian resetting magnitude can be enhanced by increasing irradiance, prolonging stimulus duration, or using short-wavelength (blue) light to preferentially activate melanopsin-expressing ipRGCs.
- Electrical lighting (not just solar light) is capable of resetting human circadian rhythms, with implications for indoor lighting design.
Categories
Sleep & Circadian Health: Reviews light-induced phase shifting of circadian rhythms including phase-delay and phase-advance responses relevant to sleep disorder treatment.
The Science of Light: Discusses melanopsin-expressing ipRGCs, spectral sensitivity (short-wavelength blue light), irradiance, and duration as key parameters for circadian resetting.
Author(s)
JJ Gooley
Publication Year
2018
Number of Citations
9
Related Publications
Sleep & Circadian Health
- Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock
- The mammalian circadian timing system: organization and coordination of central and peripheral clocks
- The twoâprocess model of sleep regulation: a reappraisal
- Melanopsin is required for non-image-forming photic responses in blind mice
- Strange vision: ganglion cells as circadian photoreceptors
The Science of Light
- Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock
- Color appearance models
- The mammalian circadian timing system: organization and coordination of central and peripheral clocks
- Diminished pupillary light reflex at high irradiances in melanopsin-knockout mice
- Melanopsin is required for non-image-forming photic responses in blind mice