Bad Weather Got You Down? A Light in the Ear Canal Might Help
Do long, dark winter nights get you down? For those affected with the form of depression known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the winter can be a difficult time. The National Health Service of the UK estimates that 7% of Britons are affected by SAD, and U.S. estimates hover between 4% and 6%. According to Mayo Clinic, SAD occurs most commonly during the winter months and happens because of an imbalance of melatonin production, which can disrupt the body’s internal clock and lead to depressive symptoms like anxiety, lack of concentration, irritability, and hopelessness.
The most common therapy to date involves prolonged exposure to bright light (30 minutes at 10,000 lux – with the average office lighting being around 400 lux, and a bright sunny day being between 10,000 and 25,000 lux.) However, a new study from a Finnish medical company has found that a 12 minute session of light focused in the ear canal may be just as effective in treating SAD. The researchers channel the light into photosensitive areas of the brain via the ear canal via a headset device for 12 minutes a day. You can learn more about the device and the corresponding clinical trials in this article.
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Posted: Neuroscience, Research studies
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November 21st, 2011 at 4:49 am
Interesting. I am always more depressed in the winter. I had no idea about the ear though.
November 26th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
How can visible light shine through bone? This sounds like a shameful scam.
November 30th, 2011 at 5:58 am
Looks like an interesting article but the link is broken.
“You can learn more about the device and the corresponding clinical trials in (this article
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/08/4038044/bright-light-into-the-ear-canal.html).”
November 30th, 2011 at 8:29 am
Your link to the article on Ear Canal Light Stimulation is broken. Please tell me how I can find this article.
November 30th, 2011 at 8:30 am
The “Bad Weather” article link has either moved or expired. I’d like to read the article. Hope you will fix this link. Thanks
November 30th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I got a traumatic brain injury 17 months ago (hit by car riding bicycle ) which forced me to move from las Vegas back to Boston with family for help. I am desperately trying to find something to help me with seasonal disorder. So any ideas for me to help with this are greatly appreciated. Thanks.
December 1st, 2011 at 6:26 pm
I am very interested in the Finnish study re light in the ear. But the link you include doesn’t work. Please send the correct link.
Thanks
December 19th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Hi all – it looks like the Sacramento Bee article we linked to has expired. Here is a Reuters article and video about it! http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/11/20/light-to-the-brain-relieves-winter-blues?videoId=225488776
December 19th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
@Levi I asked our staff scientists about this, and they said that without knowing the specifics of the study it’s hard to say, but it’s conceivable that light could get through to the pineal body… and if it’s in a high and intense enough light could penetrate sinal nerves
December 21st, 2011 at 12:31 am
Here’s some links on the Valkee.
Clinical Trails submission by University of Oulu (Finland)
Bright Light Therapy in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT01293409
James Randi Educational Foundation Thread
This study’s data is subject to question — post by “Eoghan” (scroll down).
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=210470
“Some facts:
There are two versions of the trial (id=NCT01293409) on clinicalTrials.gov. The initial 2011.02.09 version lists “placebo controlled” as a design element. The second and final version from 2011.05.31, contains the results of the study. That final version also seems to have had the “placebo controlled” element deleted. (See “History of Changes” at clinicalTrials.gov)
The NCT01293409 trial was described as having three groups (Placebo, Intermediate dose, High dose) with an estimated enrollment of 90.
On the Valkee site, the clinical trial is described as follows: “During the four-week study period 89 subjects suffering from SAD received 12-min daily doses of photic energy in three different randomly divided groups (1, 4, 9 lumen).”
Some speculation:
The clinical trial referred to by Valkee seems to be NCT01293409. However in the Valkee study the placebo group has disappeared and has become the ’1 lumen’ treatment group.
Could it be that Valkee ran the study originally using a placebo group but the actual results showed that even the placebo group elicited a strong response? Indeed as noted above by Kuko 4000 the 1-lumen group outperforms the 9-lumen group.
Faced with these results could Valkee have decided that the 1-lumen light level was not a placebo but was sufficient to cause an improvement in symptoms of SAD? So the placebo group was re-classified as a treatment group?
It may be true that the 1-lumen light has a genuine non-placebo effect. But it may equally be true that none of the three levels of light (1, 4, 9-lumens) has a genuine (non-placebo) effect and all results are due solely to the placebo effect. Having no placebo group, how can Valkee be sure as to what is going on in their study? The improvement in SAD may be real but Valkee cannot exclude that this is due to the placebo effect.
And the placebo effect may be very strong here given that a previous study had shown a biological effect on the brain triggered by light fed in through the ears and confirmed using fMRI (assuming that the trial volunteers were told about this study when recruited)”
Valkee “Scientific Program and Results”, with links
[Mainly poster session reports still awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal.]
http://www.valkee.com/uk/science.html#navigation
Latest press release:
HELSINKI, December 14, 2011 — /PRNewswire/ –
Bright Light Therapy via Ear Canals Improved Reaction Times of Top Athletes in a Placebo-Controlled Psycho-Motoric Study
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/14/4121551/bright-light-therapy-via-ear-canals.html
[Again, not yet published as a peer-reviewed journal article.]
Is the ear the best place to shine light? Utube demonstration of a different opinion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDgzE8fm500
The company isn’t selling the Valkee in the United States yet, but some distributors in Finland offer their device on eBay. The latest model is the NPT-1100.
One possible index of customer satisfaction. There don’t seem to be used Valkees listed by dissatisfied customers on either the USA or UK eBay sites.
It is not clear why the same effect claimed by the manufacturer can’t also be tested with a pair of small variable-intensity LED flashlights capable of a low-lumen output in the range of the Valkee device.
December 22nd, 2011 at 1:29 am
This is idea from finnish diy hobbyist and it may not have the same kind of healing and therapeutic effects as the original commercial product, but if you want to test the effects of the bright light conducted to the inside of your scull, you can try this and manufacture your own ear light device!
Just order a few very bright, 14000mcd (14 candelas), 5mm, white LED diodes from DealExtreme and follow these instructions: http://metku.net/index.html?path=mods/valokkeet/index
The instructions are in finnish, but you can use google translater if the pictures don’t tell you enough…