Night lights may foster depression

Psychiatrists sometimes prescribe light therapy to treat a form of depression in people who get too little morning sun. But too much light at other times may actually trigger such mood disorders. Chronic exposure to light at night unleashes depression, a new study finds — at least in animals. Mood disorders join a growing list of problems — including cancer, obesity and diabetes — that can occur when light throws life out of balance by disrupting the biological clock and its timing of daily rhythms. Compared with animals exposed to normal nighttime darkness, those getting dim light at night lost their intense preference for sweet drinks, which is a sign they no longer get pleasure out of activities they once enjoyed, In a second test, animals were clocked on how long they actively tried to escape a pool of water. Hamsters exposed to night lights stopped struggling and just floated in the water which is a sign of behavioral despair. All symptoms of depression, including the nerve-cell changes, disappeared within two weeks of the animals returning to a normal light-dark cycle, the researchers report. A possible solultion to depression caused from light is that we should creat at light that doesn't have these affects. A barrier to this solution is that it will be hard to find or make a light that won't affect people or animals in a negative way. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/342495/description/Night_lights_may_foster_depression