Margaret Naeser, PhD, is located at the Boston VA Medical Center, and is Research Professor of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine. Since 2009, she has studied the effect of red/near-infrared (NIR) light-emitting diodes (LED) placed over the scalp/brain to treat sequelae of traumatic brain injury (TBI), PTSD, stroke/Aphasia, Dementia, and Gulf War Illness. She has a strong interest in neuroplasticity and utilizing transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) to promote neuromodulation for brain recovery. This includes studying changes in functional connectivity on MRI scans within specific, intrinsic neural networks which are damaged (but not destroyed), in various central nervous system disorders. She has had VA-/ NIH-funded research for over 40 years, with early emphasis on neuroanatomy of stroke location in the brain, on CT/MRI scans in patients who have language problems (Aphasia). She has published research using transcranial magnetic brain stimulation in (rTMS) to improve language in chronic stroke/Aphasia. She has over 100 publications. She is on the editorial board, Photobiomodulation, Photomedicine and Laser Surgery (PMLS) and Fellow, American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS). She received her BA from Smith College, and PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Sorry, just to clarify: my goal is to have a doctor/scientist generated sound-byte type response to "what about hair?" as I don't have the professional background to feel like I can make up my own.
Please excuse me, but I have a very basic, lay-person type question which I've been asked a few times and had to respond, "I don't know the answer to that. I'm sorry." (I used to be an attorney.)
Question: Does PMBT light work the same shining through hair as it does being put directly on the cranium? Meaning, do you have to adjust dose, delivery mechanism, etc. to deal with one person having a full head of hair and another who is bald, when delivering cranial treatments? Or does the efficacy of the light medicine permeate through hair, so it doesn't matter?
Again, I understand that this might be viewed as a "stupid" question, but people care about these basic concepts when introduced to the idea of healing with light, not chemicals.
And just to add....yes I do tell them, "There are different mechanisms from putting basically a bucket on your head, to ones that focus on contact with the skull, to sticking a delivery wand up into the nose. But I have no idea about the background concepts of efficacy, differences in a way that I understand the difference between the approaches on delivering light to the cranium."
I've also asked Prof. Lim to get an engineer's perspective.
If possible, please also email me your response, so I have a contact email for you. My address: love@blissrevealed.com.