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The dark depths of winter can trigger a form of depression called seasonal affective disorder. Now, researchers think they have discovered how a particular light-sensitive gene mediates the effect of light—or its absence—on mood.
Period 1 (Per1) is one of the clock genes, which play key roles in the functioning of the body’s circadian rhythm. The study, published July 8 in PLOS Genetics, suggests that just a 15-minute pulse of bright light very early in the morning can alleviate depressive behaviors in mice by increasing expression of this gene in a region of the brain known to be involved in mood.
Study coauthor Urs Albrecht, a biochemist at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, first became interested in the link between light exposure and mood when he was a medical student in Zurich and noticed that he would experience more depressive moods during the dark, foggy ...
