Transcranial infrared laser stimulation produces beneficial cognitive and emotional effects in humans.

Participants receiving infrared laser stimulation performed better on selected attention and memory tasks. This small study explored healthy volunteers, not treatment of a diagnosed condition.

Barrett DW, Gonzalez-Lima F.
Neuroscience · Publication date: 2012-11-27
Added to site: 2026-09-09
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2012.11.016

Publication date recorded by Europe PMC; online and issue dates may differ.

Modalities

PBM

Clinical focus

Cognition

Population

Healthy volunteers

Sample

40 volunteers: 20 treated, 20 controls

Intervention / method

Forehead infrared laser stimulation

Comparator

Placebo control

Clinician summary

The authors reported improvements in vigilance reaction time and delayed-match-to-sample performance, with favorable self-reported affect at two weeks.

How to interpret the findings

Small sample and limited follow-up. Results cannot establish disease-treatment efficacy or be generalized to all red-light devices.

Equipment and disclosures

The abstract identifies a CG-5000 laser.

Funding and competing-interest disclosures were not verified from the reviewed abstract.

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