ArticleMolecular psychiatry2020
Acute exposure to low-level light at night is sufficient to induce neurological changes and depressive-like behavior.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 122 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chronic exposure to artificial light at night dampens rhythms in locomotor activity, metabolism, and sleep in female mice.Physiology & behavior · 2026Article
- Paternal Circadian Disruption Impairs Offspring Cognition via Sperm microRNAs.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Circadian irregularity in schizophrenia and familial risk: a comparative study.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Mitigating Blue-Light Risk in Display-Based Digital Therapeutics: A Practical Framework to Support Clinical Efficacy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Short-term continuous light exposure induces hippocampal rhythmic and functional alterations: a multi-timepoint metabolomics study.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2026Article
- Gut microbiota, circadian rhythms and their interactions: implications for the pathogenesis and treatment of depression.Annals of medicine · 2025Review
- Different Protocols of Circadian Rhythm Disruptions Differentially Affect Locomotor Activity, and Anxiety- and Compulsive-Like Behaviors in Male vs. Female Wistar Rats along with the Significant Involvement of GSK-3β in Females.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- Effects of air and light pollution on brain and behavioral function: Potential synergy.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Association between outdoor artificial light at night, circadian health, and LDL-C in intracranial artery atherosclerotic stenosis.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Prenatal psychological stress mediates vertical transmission of gut microbiome to the next generation affecting offspring depressive-like behaviors and neurotransmitter.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Circadian clock and its effect on aging and lifespan.Biogerontology · 2025Review
- Dim light at night induces depression-like behaviors during the postpartum period through circadian rhythm related pathways in mice.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Suprachiasmatic nucleus dysfunction induces anxiety- and depression-like behaviors via activating the BDNF-TrkB pathway of the striatum.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Effects of Stage Lighting on Visual Comfort at Summer Festivals: A Study in Portugal.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Dim light at night unmasks sex-specific differences in circadian and autonomic regulation of cardiovascular physiology.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Dim light at night shifts microglia to a pro-inflammatory state after cerebral ischemia, altering stroke outcome in mice.Experimental neurology · 2024Article
- Chronic phase advances reduces recognition memory and increases vascular cognitive dementia-like impairments in aged mice.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Artificial light at night suppresses the day-night cardiovascular variability: evidence from humans and rats.Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology · 2024Review
- What happens when the lights are left on? Transcriptomic and phenotypic habituation to light pollution.iScience · 2024Article
- Potential Role of Bmal1 in Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Depression-Like Behavior and its Associated "Inflammatory Storm".Journal of neuroimmune pharmacology : the official journal of the Society on NeuroImmune Pharmacology · 2024Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The advent and wide-spread adoption of electric lighting over the past century has profoundly affected the circadian organization of physiology and behavior for many individuals in industrialized nations; electric lighting in homes, work environments, and public areas have extended daytime activities into the evening, thus, increasing night-time exposure to light. Although initially assumed to be innocuous, chronic exposure to light at night (LAN) is now associated with increased incidence of cancer, metabolic disorders, and affective problems in humans. However, little is known about potential acute effects of LAN. To determine whether acute exposure to low-level LAN alters brain function, adult male, and female mice were housed in either light days and dark nights (LD; 14 h of 150 lux:10 h of 0 lux) or light days and low level light at night (LAN; 14 h of 150 lux:10 h of 5 lux). Mice exposed to LAN on three consecutive nights increased depressive-like responses compared to mice housed in dark nights. In addition, female mice exposed to LAN increased central tendency in the open field. LAN was associated with reduced hippocampal vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) in both male and female mice, as well as increased VEGFR1 and interleukin-1β mRNA expression in females, and reduced brain derived neurotrophic factor mRNA in males. Further, LAN significantly altered circadian rhythms (activity and temperature) and circadian gene expression in female and male mice, respectively. Altogether, this study demonstrates that acute exposure to LAN alters brain physiology and can be detrimental to well-being in otherwise healthy individuals.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.