Photobiological Neuromodulation of Resting-State EEG and Steady-State Visual-Evoked Potentials by 40 Hz Violet Light Optical Stimulation in Healthy Individuals

Yoshihiro Noda; Mayuko Takano; Motoshi Hayano; Xuemei Li; Masataka Wada; Shinichiro Nakajima; Masaru Mimura; Shinichiro Kondo; Kazuo Tsubota

doi:10.3390/jpm11060557

Photobiological Neuromodulation of Resting-State EEG and Steady-State Visual-Evoked Potentials by 40 Hz Violet Light Optical Stimulation in Healthy Individuals

J Pers Med. 2021 Jun 15;11(6):557. doi: 10.3390/jpm11060557.

Authors

Yoshihiro Noda¹, Mayuko Takano¹, Motoshi Hayano^{1

2

3}, Xuemei Li¹, Masataka Wada¹, Shinichiro Nakajima¹, Masaru Mimura¹, Shinichiro Kondo⁴, Kazuo Tsubota^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan.
² Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan.
³ Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama 223-0061, Japan.
⁴ Tsubota Laboratory, Inc., Tokyo 160-0016, Japan.

Abstract

Photobiological neuromodulation and its clinical application has been investigated in recent years. The response of the gamma-oscillation to human visual stimuli is known to be both burst and resonant in nature, and the coupling between alpha and gamma oscillations may play a functional role in visual processing. To date, there is no study that examined the effects of gamma-frequency violet light (VL) stimulation on human electroencephalography (EEG). In this study, we investigated the neurophysiological changes induced by light stimulation using EEG. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the specific effects of 40 Hz gamma-frequency VL stimulation on EEG activity by comparing the effects of white light (WL) with the same condition. Twenty healthy participants (10 females: 37.5 ± 14.3 years; 10 males: 38.0 ± 13.3 years) participated in this study and the following results were observed. First, when compared with the power spectrum density (PSD) of baseline EEG, 40 Hz-WL induced significant increase of PSD in theta band. Second, compared the PSDs between EEG with 40 Hz-VL and EEG with 40 Hz-WL, 40 Hz-VL induced significantly lower enhancement in delta and theta bands than 40 Hz-WL. Third, when focused on the occipital area, negative peak of VEP with 40 Hz-VL was smaller than that of 40 Hz-WL. Fourth, 40 Hz-VL induced an increase of alpha-gamma coupling during the VEP at the F5 electrode site as well as post-EEG at the C4 electrode site, compared with baseline EEG. Thus, the present study suggested that 40 Hz-VL stimulation may induce unique photobiological neuromodulations on human EEG activity.

Keywords: alpha-phase and gamma-amplitude coupling; photobiological neuromodulation; resting-state electroencephalography (EEG); steady-state gamma-frequency stimulation; violet light; visual-evoked potential.