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. 2016 Apr;11(4):563-5.
doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.180737.

Multi-watt near-infrared light therapy as a neuroregenerative treatment for traumatic brain injury

Theodore A Henderson  1
Affiliations

Multi-watt near-infrared light therapy as a neuroregenerative treatment for traumatic brain injury

Theodore A Henderson. Neural Regen Res. 2016 Apr.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Hypothesized mechanism of action of near-infrared light therapy (NILT). Near infrared light (600-980 nm) penetrates tissue and a fraction of the photonic energy reaches the mitochondria. The light of particular wavelengths is absorbed by cytochrome C oxidase and activates increased ATP production, increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), and possibly increases nitric oxide (Chung et al., 2012; Henderson and Morries, 2015). Downstream events include increased early response genes – c-fos, c-jun and activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB), which in turn induces increased transcription of gene products leading to synaptogenesis, neurogenesis, and increased production of inflammatory mediators and growth factors (Henderson and Morries, 2015a). Clinically, this results in decreased symptoms of headache, cognitive impairment, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and depression (Morries et al., 2015). Functional neuroimaging demonstrates increased cortical function. The case illustrated is of a patient with a 30 year old moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI). Shown is the contralateral hemisphere with marked diffuse hypoperfusion indicating widespread dysfunction. Following a course of NILT, the patient had demonstrable clinical improvement and significantly improved cerebral perfusion/function (Henderson and Morries, 2015b). SPECT scan data was processed and a map of statistically significant differences from a normative database was generated using the Oasis software by Segami, Inc. The color scale indicates gray for areas that do not differ significantly from the normative database. In contrast, areas of green, light blue, and dark blue represent areas of more than 2, 3, and 4 SD below the mean perfusion of the normative database, respectively. Statistically significant increases in perfusion are illustrated in the red color scale not seen in this patient's brain map.
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