Supersensitivity of Patients With Bipolar I Disorder to Light-Induced Phase Delay by Narrow Bandwidth Blue Light

Bipolar disorder is a severe chronic mental disorder. There is a bidirectional relationship between disease course and circadian phase. Significant circadian phase shifts occur during transitions between episodes, but episodes can also be elicited during euthymia by forced rapid changes in circadian phase. Although an instability of circadian phase has been described in multiple observational reports, no studies quantifying the propensity to phase shift following an experimental standardized stimulus have been published. This study therefore aimed to assess whether patients with bipolar I disorder (BDI) are more prone to phase delay following blue light exposure in the evening than healthy control subjects.

Euthymic participants with BDI confirmed by Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I (n = 32) and healthy control subjects (n = 55) underwent a 3-day phase shift protocol involving exposure to a standardized dose of homogeneous, constant, narrow bandwidth blue light (478 nm, half bandwidth = 18 nm, photon flux = 1.29 × 10¹⁵ photons/cm²/s) for 2 hours at 9:00 pm via a ganzfeld dome on day 2. On days 1 and 3, serial serum melatonin assessments during total darkness were performed to determine the dim light melatonin onset.

Significant differences in the light-induced phase shift between BDI and healthy control subjects were detected (F _1,82 = 4.110; p = .046), with patients with bipolar disorder exhibiting an enhanced phase delay (η² = 0.49). There were no significant associations between the magnitude of the phase shift and clinical parameters.

Supersensitivity of patients with BDI to light-induced phase delay may contribute to the observed phase instability and vulnerability to forced phase shifts associated with the disorder.