How MIT 40 Hz Light implies Gamma Waves from Lucid Dreaming an Alzheimer's Cure

Light therapy is a new field of Medicine that is being used in surprising ways. This as the human body is effectively opaque to light and light is a form of electromagnetic energy. So photons are the equivalent of an electric jolt for certain cells in the body not exposed to light.

So it comes as a surprise that using flickering light can help to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s  as reported in the article “Light therapy could break down Alzheimer’s brain deposits”, published 7 December 2016, New Scientist.

Researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) led by Dr. Li Huei Tsai  and Dr. Ed Boyden recently published their research in the Journal Nature titled Gamma frequency entrainment attenuates amyloid load and modifies microglia.

The researchers exposed mice to light flickering at 40Hz, which is just 20Hz below the 60Hz frequency at which an incandescent bulb flickers on and off. They discovered that the flickering light triggered gamma waves in the brains of mice that seemed to remove beta-amyloid plaques.

This plaque is symptomatic of Alzheimer’s and can be removed once ultrasound is used to open up the blood-brain barrier as I’d pointed out in my blog article entitled “University of Queensland's Ultrasound reversal of Alzheimer's - Neurotoxic amyloid-ß plaques Removal with MicroBubbles”.

So what does Gamma Waves in the brain have to do with beta-amyloid plaques? And when can this be applied to humans?

MIT’s 40 Hz flickering Light - Gamma Waves in Lucid Dreaming a Alzheimer’s Cure

Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia that is a global problem without an effective cure or treatment. The Global health cost of treating the disease is expected to reach US$2 trillion by 2013, dwarfing cancer and heart disease health costs in the US of A!

Dr. Li Huei Tsai and her team discovered that by exposing mice to light flickering at 40Hz for 1 hr a day for a week. Their work was built on the research of Dr. Li Huei Tsai, who made the link between gamma wave and Alzheimer’s when her research team discovered decreased Gamma Wave activity in hippocampus of mice with Alzheimer’s disease!

They discovered that the flickering light caused brain cells in the animals’ visual cortex to oscillate together. This resulted in the creation of Gamma waves that seemed to boost the cells that clear beta-amyloid plaques, decreasing the production of beta-amyloid plaques in the process.

The Human Brain produces the following Brainwaves which consist of three (3) types of brainwaves named after letter in the Greek Alphabet:

1.      Alpha Waves (8 to 12Hz) are associated with relaxation

2.      Beta Waves (13 to 30Hz) are associated with concentration

3.      Gamma Waves (31 to 130Hz) are associated with consciousness during wakefulness i.e. Lucid Dreaming

 It also reduced the number of tau tangles in this section of the brain.

This exciting discovery does not mean that they've found a cure for Alzheimer’s. After all, the effect on the reduction of beta-amyloid plaques and tau tangles was noted in the cells in the animals’ visual cortex, not the memory areas that Alzheimer's damages first. Also the mechanism by which this occurs is still unknown.

Still, this research suggests that a basic treatment for humans could involve expensing humans to a flickering 40Hz light source for 1 hr for a week or more to produce similar results. So getting grandma a go-go LED flasher similar to the Lifx Color 1000  bulb as described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “How the US$60 Lifx Color 1000 makes Lighting a Strip Club easier” may be just the thing the doctor orders in the future!

It also implies that inducing gamma waves via electrical stimulation not only helps with Lucid dreaming as noted in my blog article entitled “How Frankfurt University's Dr Ursula Voss Electric Shocks induces Gamma Waves for Lucid Dreaming”,  but could potentially be another treatment for this debilitating memory disease.