Winter blues see the light
People of all ages can develop winter blues or seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of clinical depression which occurs typically during the fall and winter and resolves itself by spring. Eric Lenze, MD, professor of psychiatry at
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says bright light therapy, sometimes called phototherapy, is the treatment of choice for seasonal affective disorder.
Guide star lets scientists see deep into human tissue
Focusing light into a scattering medicum such as tissue has been a dream since the beginning of biomedical optics, according to Lihong Wang, PhD, WUSTL biomedical imaging expert. Previous techniques allowed light to be focused only within a millimeter of the skin. Now Wang has invented a technique called “TRUE” that uses an ultrasound guide star to allow scattered optical light to be focused deep within tissue.