|
Transcranial infrared laser stimulation (TILS) uses infrared light (lasers or LEDs) for nondestructive and non-thermal photobiomodulation on the human brain. Although TILS has shown its beneficial effects to a variety of neurological and psychological conditions, its physiological mechanism remains unknown. Cytochrome-c-oxidase (CCO), the last enzyme in the electron transportation chain, is proposed to be the primary photoacceptor of this infrared laser. In this study, we wish to validate this proposed mechanism. We applied 8 minutes in vivo TILS on the right forehead of 11 human participants with a 1064-nm laser. Broad-band near infrared spectroscopy (bb-NIRS) from 740-900nm was also employed near the TILS site to monitor hemodynamic and metabolic responses during the stimulation and 5-minute recovery period. For rigorous comparison, we also performed similar 8-min bb-NIR measurements under placebo conditions. A multi-linear regression analysis based on the modified Beer-Lambert law was performed to estimate concentration changes of oxy-hemoglobin (Δ[HbO]), deoxy-hemoglobin (Δ[Hb]), and cytochrome-c-oxidase (Δ[CCO]). We found that TILS induced significant increases of [CCO], [HbO] and a decrease of [Hb] with dose-dependent manner as compared with placebo treatments. Furthermore, strong linear relationships or interplays between [CCO] versus [HbO] and [CCO] versus [Hb] induced by TILS were observed in vivo for the first time. These relationships have clearly revealed close coupling/relationship between the hemodynamic oxygen supply and blood volume versus up-regulation of CCO induced by photobiomodulation. Our results demonstrate the tremendous potential of bb-NIRS as a non-invasive in vivo means to study photobiomodulation mechanisms and perform treatment evaluations of TILS.
|
