title: Pilot study of light therapy and neurocognitive performance of attention and memory in healthy subjects.
abstract: The aim of this pilot study was to investigate whether light therapy improves healthy subjects' neurocognitive performance of attention, memory, and language. Ten subjects were treated with white bright light for 5 days and a control group of 10 with no treatment were assessed with a battery of neurocognitive tests which included the Stroop Colour Word Interference Test, the Verbal Fluency Test, the Story Recall Test, and the Word Pairs Recall Test. Analysis showed improvements in cognitive scores in both groups, although on all the cognitive tests the mean difference scores between baseline and endpoint were significantly larger in the light-treated group. These preliminary results suggest that short-term bright light may exert beneficial effects on cognitive functions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatric Sciences and Psychological Medicine, "La Sapienza" University of Rome. giuseppe.bersani@uniroma.it
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bersani
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marconi
authors.forename: Lucilla
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Limpido
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tarolla
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Caroti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010789:Phototherapy; D010865:Pilot Projects