Researchers at Michigan State University say dim lighting can actually have a physical impact on your brain.
Researchers were exploring how bright lights can help people perform better on tasks.
They discovered not only where and how the brain responds to light intensity. They also discovered that prolonged exposure to dim lights can impair processing and memory.
Tony Nuñez is a co-researcher on the study.
“Get bright lights and turn them on! If you not exposed to bright lights and your in doors alot, you would be doing to yourself exactly what we did to the animals that were put in the dim light conditions.”
Nuñez said in dim light, neurons change and lose about 30% of their ability to process information. He says the effect appears to be reversible by spending time in bright light.
“It appears to be reversible. But that has to be taken with a grain of salt, because these animals that we used were very young, they were young adults, and the question that now remains is weather or not older animals retain the ability to bounce back.”
He said research will continue into the resiliency of brains of older animals. And into the implications this research might have on people with eye diseases who can’t see bright light.
“For normal individuals all you have to do if there's a problem related to light restriction is to turn the lights brighter, but if you have individuals that have retinal pathologies, if they have a glaucoma or retinal degeneration due to diabetes or other reasons then putting in bright lights doesn't solve the problem.”