Abstract

SO.12.06

Cognitive loss due to blue light blocking of the ageing crystalline lens?

Gerstmeyer K.¹, Lehrl S.², Bleich S.^2
1Eye Clinic Minden, ²Clinic for Psychiatrie and Psychotherapie University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen

Objective: Blue light increases alertness and thereby cognitive efficiency. With increasing age the incidence of a lens turbidity is more frequent and the development is more pronounced. At the same time the transparency of light, especially of blue light and the actual mental efficiency decrease. The drop in mental efficiency can be overcome partly or sometimes even completely by IOL implantation (Gerstmeyer & Lehrl, 2004). What is the reason for this restitution? Could blue light play an important role?
Methods: Post analysis of available data from a field experiment with 44 adults dealing with the impact of blue and yellow light on cognitive performance. Age ranged from 17 to 79 years (median 63,5 years), 27 (61,3%) were female. The speed of information processing was chosen as an indicator of actual mental performance.
Results: Zero-order correlations show positive correlations between age and alertness and negative with cognitive performance. The influence of blue light compared with yellow light did not demonstrate clear relations. Using factor analysis (principal component analysis with Kaiser’s varimax procedure) other influences like interindividual levels of speed of information processing or blue light dependent alertness are partialled out and a strong factor with the following relations remains: With increasing age yellow and white light have more impact on the level of alertness than blue light. Moreover a tendency of the older ones is given not to increase cognitive performance under blue light in such a way as it applies to the younger ones.
Conclusions: The blue light blocking effect of the ageing crystalline lens could be the main reason for the decrease of alertness and of cognitive performance due to cataract leading to a loss of quality of life. If more younger adults had participated in the study this effect would have been seen more clearly.

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