New Treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder

While a lot of people get a case of the blues around the holidays and in the winter months because life seems harder than normal due to perhaps no one to share it with or just dealing with downfalls of snow. But seasonal affective disorder is just as real and devastating as regular depression. The only difference is it happens only during certain times of the year. Scientists speculate that the lack of physical sunlight during these months, with shorter days and more inside activities, are to blame for this. And so a new treatment is being explored that exposes the brain to more light, but not through the eyes, but through the ears.

Yes, you read that right. Eyes may be the windows to our souls, but researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland say that the ears may be the key to more direct access to the brain. They contain photoreceptor proteins that perceive light just as our optical nerves do. But it’s not really that healthy for the eyes to have bright lights shown into them for long periods of time. Anyone who has sat in front of a monitor for hours knows that it can lead to eye fatigue, headaches, and staring into brighter lights can even cause physical damage. But the ears don’t have any of these concerns, so if doctors can get the same message to the brain through this method, all the better.

The light is created using a specialized headset that was built specifically for the purpose from a company named Valkee. Since it is considered a medical apparatus, it would probably be required to go through FDA approval before being able to be used in the US, but has already gained certification in Europe. The headset is responsible for shining the light into the ears painlessly as the patient goes through the treatment.

Finland is the perfect place to test and develop this technology because the country has a serious problem with suicide, ranking it number #1 in that regard. This is thought to be due to a high number of seasonal affective disorder sufferers because of the long and sunless winters that they must endure every year. So this research is definitely one that is very important to the scientists and their findings should give hope to a lot of people around the world who suffer the same fate, such as those in Northern Alaska and Canada.

What are their findings? Well, they did a small clinical trial with the headset, exposing SAD sufferers to a month of daily treatments in which light was shined into their ears for around eight to twelve minutes. As they had surmised, 74-79% of these people were cured by the light, which was a pretty good percentage for something so unique. I’m sure focus now will concentrate on that other 25%, but it’s definitely a good step towards the goal of ridding patients of the disease and should make a significant difference to those afflicted.

The study’s results were published in the International Journal of Psychiatry and Clinical Practice.