The Effect of Acute Bright Light Exposure on Social Affiliation

In recent decades, bright light has emerged as a useful tool in numerous clinical and non-clinical applications, with the potential to influence circadian rhythms, sleep, mood, and several other functional domains. However, despite the existence of plausible neurological pathways through which light could also influence social behavior, little is known at this point about the direct effects of bright light exposure on social interaction. Accordingly, the present study - utilizing a sample of young adults endorsing at least mild seasonal fluctuations in clinically relevant domains - examined the acute effects of a single 45-minute session of bright white light (15,000 lux) versus dim red light (200 lux) exposure on affiliative behavior. A significant interaction was observed between light condition and prior retinal sunlight exposure in the prediction of affiliative desire. Specifically, among study participants unexposed to high levels of morning blue-wavelength sunlight prior to the experiment, those in the bright light condition preferred the company of a stranger (another study participant) at a significantly higher level than did those in the control condition. In fact, they were nearly 6 times more likely than those in the dim red condition to elect such affiliation while awaiting a stressful speech task. No such between-group differences were observed among the subset of participants who, through nonadherence to the study protocol, were previously exposed to morning sunlight. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that bright light exposure carries the potential to enhance affiliative drive, perhaps via cerebral serotonergic mediation. The results also raise the possibility that this salubrious alteration of social behavior may account for some of the established therapeutic effects of light therapy

An Examination of the Acute Effects of Bright Light Therapy in a Non-Clinical Sample

The integral role of light in physiological and psychological well-being is illustrated by the application of phototherapy, or bright light therapy (BLT), in treating mood disorders such as seasonal affective disorder and non-seasonal depression. More recently, BLT has been applied in treating jet lag due to transmeridian travel, complications from shift work, and disorders of sleeping and waking. Despite the numerous potential applications of BLT, deleterious side effects have not been fully explored in a non-clinical population. Thus, I examined the acute side effects (nausea, headache, blurred vision, eye strain) of a single 30-minute exposure of bright white light (10,000 lux) therapy and a comparison dim red light (<500 lux) in non-depressed sample of young adults, with a focus on the potential moderating role of depressive symptoms. Linear regressions revealed no significant main effects for light. However, self-reported nausea and total side effect intensity significantly decreased in response to white light, but not red light, for those with greater depressive symptomatology. In addition, a repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a significant group-by-time interaction for sad mood, which decreased at a higher rate in the white light condition compared to the red light condition. Also, a post-hoc analysis revealed a significant increase in eye strain for both conditions, with no significant difference between them. These results suggest that the high prevalence of acute adverse side effects in the extant BLT literature may not fully apply to non-clinical populations

Second-Hand Stress: Neurobiological Evidence for a Human Alarm Pheromone

Alarm pheromones are airborne chemical signals, released by an individual into the environment, which transmit warning of danger to conspecifics via olfaction. Using fMRI, we provide the first neurobiological evidence for a human alarm pheromone. Individuals showed activation of the amygdala in response to sweat produced by others during emotional stress, with exercise sweat as a control; behavioral data suggest facilitated evaluation of ambiguous threat

Chemosensory Cues to Conspecific Emotional Stress Activate Amygdala in Humans

Alarm substances are airborne chemical signals, released by an individual into the environment, which communicate emotional stress between conspecifics. Here we tested whether humans, like other mammals, are able to detect emotional stress in others by chemosensory cues. Sweat samples collected from individuals undergoing an acute emotional stressor, with exercise as a control, were pooled and presented to a separate group of participants (blind to condition) during four experiments. In an fMRI experiment and its replication, we showed that scanned participants showed amygdala activation in response to samples obtained from donors undergoing an emotional, but not physical, stressor. An odor-discrimination experiment suggested the effect was primarily due to emotional, and not odor, differences between the two stimuli. A fourth experiment investigated behavioral effects, demonstrating that stress samples sharpened emotion-perception of ambiguous facial stimuli. Together, our findings suggest human chemosensory signaling of emotional stress, with neurobiological and behavioral effects

Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) 2015: advancing efficient methodologies through community partnerships and team science

It is well documented that the majority of adults, children and families in need of evidence-based behavioral health interventionsi do not receive them [1, 2] and that few robust empirically supported methods for implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist. The Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) represents a burgeoning effort to advance the innovation and rigor of implementation research and is uniquely focused on bringing together researchers and stakeholders committed to evaluating the implementation of complex evidence-based behavioral health interventions. Through its diverse activities and membership, SIRC aims to foster the promise of implementation research to better serve the behavioral health needs of the population by identifying rigorous, relevant, and efficient strategies that successfully transfer scientific evidence to clinical knowledge for use in real world settings [3]. SIRC began as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded conference series in 2010 (previously titled the “Seattle Implementation Research Conference”; $150,000 USD for 3 conferences in 2011, 2013, and 2015) with the recognition that there were multiple researchers and stakeholdersi working in parallel on innovative implementation science projects in behavioral health, but that formal channels for communicating and collaborating with one another were relatively unavailable. There was a significant need for a forum within which implementation researchers and stakeholders could learn from one another, refine approaches to science and practice, and develop an implementation research agenda using common measures, methods, and research principles to improve both the frequency and quality with which behavioral health treatment implementation is evaluated. SIRC’s membership growth is a testament to this identified need with more than 1000 members from 2011 to the present.ii SIRC’s primary objectives are to: (1) foster communication and collaboration across diverse groups, including implementation researchers, intermediariesi, as well as community stakeholders (SIRC uses the term “EBP champions” for these groups) – and to do so across multiple career levels (e.g., students, early career faculty, established investigators); and (2) enhance and disseminate rigorous measures and methodologies for implementing EBPs and evaluating EBP implementation efforts. These objectives are well aligned with Glasgow and colleagues’ [4] five core tenets deemed critical for advancing implementation science: collaboration, efficiency and speed, rigor and relevance, improved capacity, and cumulative knowledge. SIRC advances these objectives and tenets through in-person conferences, which bring together multidisciplinary implementation researchers and those implementing evidence-based behavioral health interventions in the community to share their work and create professional connections and collaborations

The acute side effects of bright light therapy: a placebo-controlled investigation.

Despite the emergence of numerous clinical and non-clinical applications of bright light therapy (LT) in recent decades, the prevalence and severity of LT side effects have not yet been fully explicated. A few adverse LT effects-headache, eye strain, irritability, and nausea-have been consistently reported among depressed individuals and other psychiatric cohorts, but there exists little published evidence regarding LT side effects in non-clinical populations, who often undergo LT treatment of considerably briefer duration. Accordingly, in the present study we examined, in a randomized sample of healthy young adults, the acute side effects of exposure to a single 30-minute session of bright white light (10,000 lux) versus dim red light (< 500 lux). Across a broad range of potential side effects, repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed no significant group-by-time (Pre, Post) interactions. In other words, bright light exposure was not associated with a significantly higher incidence of any reported side effect than was the placebo control condition. Nevertheless, small but statistically significant increases in both eye strain and blurred vision were observed among both the LT and control groups. Overall, these results suggest that the relatively common occurrence of adverse side effects observed in the extant LT literature may not fully extend to non-clinical populations, especially for healthy young adults undergoing LT for a brief duration

Percentage of Side Effects Reported for Dim Red and Bright White Light at Post-Treatment.

<p>Percentage of Side Effects Reported for Dim Red and Bright White Light at Post-Treatment.</p

Psychometric curves generated by a forced-choice assessment of ambiguous threat show sharpened discrimination between threat and non-threat while breathing stress-derived sweat.

<p>For each participant, data for each condition (STRESS, EXERCISE) were fitted with the sigmoid function, where <i>p</i>₀ and <i>p</i>₀+Δ<i>p</i> define upper and lower asymptotes, A₀ is the inflection point, and σ defines slope. Significant differences between conditions were seen for slope, with individuals under the STRESS condition more closely approximating ideal perceptual discrimination, shown by the dotted line.</p

Gas chromatography mass spectroscopy analyses of exercise sweat samples were used to validate that our collection and aqueous extraction methods were capable of sampling over hydrophobic (steroid) components in human apocrine sweat.

<p>Mass spectrum of retention time 20.655 minutes shows the presence of human steroids found in apocrine sweat.</p