Neuroscientists believe that having even a dim night light
while sleeping can disturb a persons mental health and cause depressive
symptoms.
Scientists who presented the result
of their study in San Diego at the annual meeting of the Society for
Neuroscience said they found female Siberian hamsters exposed to dim light
every night for eight weeks showed significant changes in the hippocampus
region of the brain and displayed depressive symptoms when compared to another
set of hamsters kept in total darkness.
According
to Tracy Bedrosian, co-author of the study and doctoral student in Neuroscience
at Ohio State University, "Even dim light at night is sufficient to
provoke depressive-like behaviors in hamsters, which may be explained by the
changes we saw in their brains after eight weeks of exposure."
Previous studies in mice have shown that those exposed
to bright light at night became depressed and obese.
Source-Medindia