慢性头痛患者有时更喜欢非药物治疗疼痛的方法。我们之前已经证明了绿光暴露(GLED,绿色发光二极管)逆转了神经性疼痛大鼠模型中的热痛觉过敏和机械异常性疼痛。这种效应是通过视觉系统介导的。此外,我们最近发现GLED可有效降低偏头痛患者头痛的严重程度和每月头痛天数.视觉系统由图像形成路径和非图像形成路径组成;然而,不同的光敏细胞对GLED效应的贡献尚不清楚。这里,我们报道了一名66岁的男性患者,他的头痛归因于其他疾病的稳态和色盲,他被纳入GLED研究.主题,被诊断为异常,无法区分绿色,黄色,橙色,和红色的颜色。完成GLED曝光协议后,受试者注意到头痛疼痛强度显著降低,而每月头痛天数没有减少.受试者还报告了他的睡眠质量的改善。这些发现表明,绿光疗法通过非成像内在光敏视网膜神经节细胞介导头痛疼痛强度的降低。然而,受试者没有报告头痛频率的变化,提示锥体参与减少GLED引起的头痛频率。这是第一例报道的色盲慢性头痛的人使用GLED来管理他的头痛,并且可能会增加我们对不同光敏细胞在介导GLED的疼痛缓解作用中的贡献的理解。
Patients with chronic headaches sometimes prefer non-pharmacological methods for pain management. We have shown previously that green light exposure (GLED, Green Light Emitting Diode) reversed thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia in a rat model of neuropathic pain. This effect is mediated through the visual system. Moreover, we recently showed that GLED was effective in decreasing the severity of headache pain and the number of headache-days per month in migraine patients. The visual system is comprised of image-forming and non-image-forming pathways; however, the contribution of different photosensitive cells to the effect of GLED is not yet known. Here, we report a 66-year-old man with headaches attributed to other disorders of homeostasis and color blindness who was recruited in the GLED study. The subject, diagnosed with protanomaly, cannot differentiate green, yellow, orange, and red colors. After completing the GLED exposure protocol, the subject noted significant decreases in headache pain intensity without reduction in the number of headache-days per month. The subject also reported improvement in the quality of his sleep. These findings suggest that green light therapy mediates the decrease of the headache pain intensity through non-image-forming intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. However, the subject did not report a change in the frequency of his headaches, suggesting the involvement of cones in reduction of headache frequency by GLED. This is the first
case reported of a colorblind man with chronic headache using GLED to manage his headache pain and may increase our understanding of the contribution of different photosensitive cells in mediating the pain-relieving effects of GLED.