Toward the Precision Medicine for a Psychiatric Disorder: Light Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder with Neuroimaging Validation

In recent therapeutic studies, light therapy has been used to treat seasonal depression disorder in countries where there is insufficient daylight during winter. Previous light therapy studies have used one treatment for all patients, irrespective of individual differences and drug control. Although light therapy has been extended to uses in a few psychiatric treatment programs for major depressive disorder (MDD), there is a lack of consistent research and conclusion regarding its effects of different combinations of lights and the neural mechanism underlying the improvement after therapy. The present study intends to propose several combinations of lights using the beneficial physical properties in prior research and validate the efficacy of the therapies with neurophysiological techniques.