University of Manchester- Researchers are affirming that the color of light could have a huge bearing on the internal clock of humans and animals, having studied how the neurological mechanisms measure the changes in light color in the atmosphere.
Scientists have come up with a reason why humans, as well as animals, always resort to sleeping when it becomes dark in the evening and automatically get up when the sun comes up in the morning.
Researchers using mice as the study subject recorded electrical activity from the brain clock having used different visual stimuli. The findings show that neurons of the brain tend to be more receptive to the changes in color between yellow and blue rather than changes in brightness.
As part of the study the researchers created an artificial sky stimulus where the mice were found to have the highest body temperature during dusk, when the sky turns blue, an indication of the working of the body clock.
Color changes according to researchers caused the internal clocks of the mice to be confused causing peak temperatures to kick in, thirty minutes earlier than normal.
Dr. Timothy Brown of the Faculty of Life Science affirms the study is a leap in the right direction in trying to understand how human’s body clock operate.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to test the theory that color affects our body clock in any mammal. It has always been very hard to separate the change in color to the change in brightness but using new experimental tools and a psychophysics approach we were successful […]What’s exciting about our research is that the same findings can be applied to humans,” said Mr. Brown.
The body clock didn’t work properly on changing the brightness of the sky alone, suggesting how color plays an important role in regulating body temperature. The research findings could be applied in humans in the near future for the purpose of treating sleeping disorders, as well as depression and jet lag.
They could have just asked anyone who keeps a nocturnal pet – we’ve probably all got blue lights for them.