ReviewBrain sciences2024
Insights into the Effect of Light Pollution on Mental Health: Focus on Affective Disorders-A Narrative Review.
Review in Brain sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Psychosocial responses to outdoor artificial light at night (ALAN): a scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- The Therapeutic Home Environment for Chronic Diseases: A Transdisciplinary Ecosystem for Achieving Migraine Freedom and Managing Comorbid Anxiety, Insomnia, and Chronic Pain.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Outdoor light at night and neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia.GeroScience · 2026Article
- The Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla Input to Central Amygdala Regulates Anxiety-Like Behaviors in Mice for Chronic Light Exposure.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Psychosomatics at the threshold: cancer, mood disorders, and the mental pain of death - where precision medicine meets spirituality.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- From nighttime light exposure to menstrual health: a critical review of evidence, mechanisms, and nursing interventions.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2026Review
- Effects of air and light pollution on brain and behavioral function: Potential synergy.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- From Wings to Wellness: A Research Agenda Inspired by Migratory Bird Adaptations for Sleep and Circadian Medicine.Nature and science of sleep · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The presence of artificial light at night has emerged as an anthropogenic stressor in recent years. Various sources of light pollution have been shown to affect circadian physiology with serious consequences for metabolic pathways, possibly disrupting pineal melatonin production with multiple adverse health effects. The suppression of melatonin at night may also affect human mental health and contribute to the development or exacerbation of psychiatric disorders in vulnerable individuals. Due to the high burden of circadian disruption in affective disorders, it has been hypothesized that light pollution impacts mental health, mainly affecting mood regulation. Hence, the aim of this review was to critically summarize the evidence on the effects of light pollution on mood symptoms, with a particular focus on the role of circadian rhythms in mediating this relationship. We conducted a narrative review of the literature in the PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science datasets. After the screening process, eighteen papers were eligible for inclusion. The results clearly indicate a link between light pollution and the development of affective symptoms, with a central role of sleep disturbances in the emergence of mood alterations. Risk perception also represents a crucial topic, possibly modulating the development of affective symptoms in response to light pollution. The results of this review should encourage a multidisciplinary approach to the design of healthier environments, including lighting conditions among the key determinants of human mental health.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.