{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0262955","title":"Feasibility and preliminary efficacy for morning bright light therapy to improve sleep and plasma biomarkers in US Veterans with TBI. A prospective, open-label, single-arm trial","abstract":"Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with persistent sleep-wake dysfunction, including insomnia and circadian rhythm disruption, which can exacerbate functional outcomes including mood, pain, and quality of life. Present therapies to treat sleep-wake disturbances in those with TBI (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia) are limited by marginal efficacy, poor patient acceptability, and/or high patient/provider burden. Thus, this study aimed to assess the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of morning bright light therapy, to improve sleep in Veterans with TBI (NCT03578003). Thirty-three Veterans with history of TBI were prospectively enrolled in a single-arm, open-label intervention using a lightbox (~10,000 lux at the eye) for 60-minutes every morning for 4-weeks. Pre- and post-intervention outcomes included questionnaires related to sleep, mood, TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and pain; wrist actigraphy as a proxy for objective sleep; and blood-based biomarkers related to TBI/sleep. The protocol was rated favorably by ~75% of participants, with adherence to the lightbox and actigraphy being ~87% and 97%, respectively. Post-intervention improvements were observed in self-reported symptoms related to insomnia, mood, and pain; actigraphy-derived measures of sleep; and blood-based biomarkers related to peripheral inflammatory balance. The severity of comorbid PTSD was a significant positive predictor of response to treatment. Morning bright light therapy is a feasible and acceptable intervention that shows preliminary efficacy to treat disrupted sleep in Veterans with TBI. A full-scale randomized, placebo-controlled study with longitudinal follow-up is warranted to assess the efficacy of morning bright light therapy to improve sleep, biomarkers, and other TBI related symptoms.","journal":"PLoS ONE","year":2022,"id":268863,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9518,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":931594,"name":"Alisha A. McBride","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":931595,"name":"Nadir M. Balba","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":931596,"name":"Stanley V. Thomas","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":422541,"name":"C. Pattinson","orcid":"0000-0002-5975-7935","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":436206,"name":"Benjamin J. Morasco","orcid":"0009-0003-0106-5105","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":931079,"name":"Andrea Wilkerson","orcid":"0000-0003-3586-2105","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":375754,"name":"Jessica Gill","orcid":"0000-0002-3689-7441","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":432079,"name":"Miranda M. Lim","orcid":"0000-0003-3876-3196","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":897050,"name":"Jonathan E. Elliott","orcid":"0000-0002-6992-6851","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":82,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:27:14.088663Z","pmid":"35421086","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}