Effect of quantity and intensity of pulsed light on human non-visual physiological responses

BACKGROUND: Exposure to pulsed light results in non-visual physiological responses in humans. The present study aims to investigate whether such non-visual effects are influenced to a greater extent by the intensity of lighting or by the power (quantity) of lighting. METHODS: >Twelve healthy young male participants (23 ± 0.3 years, 21–24 age range) were recruited for the present study. Participants were exposed to light of varying levels of intensity and quantity whose frequency was held constant across the conditions, which consisted of exposure to blue (different intensity, constant quantity) and white (constant intensity, different quantity) LEDs. Pupillary constriction, electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha band ratio, subjective sleepiness, concentration and perception of blueness were measured. RESULTS: Pupillary constriction and subjective concentration were significantly greater under the high-intensity and short pulse width (HS) condition than under the low-intensity and long pulse width (LL) conditions at three time points during exposure to high-intensity light. However, no significant differences were observed among the results at the three time points during exposure to different quantities of pulsed light. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study indicate that non-visual influences of pulsed light on physiological function are mainly determined not by the quantity but by the intensity of the emitted light, with relatively higher levels of intensity producing more significant physiological changes, suggesting potent excitation of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40101-017-0137-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.