Photobiomodulation for the Brain: Photobiomodulation Therapy in Neurology and Neuropsychiatry

Farzad Salehpour is a Ph.D. student in Behavioral Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his M.Sc. degree in Medical Physics from Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Currently, he serves as a research assistant at THOR Photomedicine Inc. in Millersville, MD, USA. He also delivers training sessions and lectures on brain photobiomodulation at the College for Light Medicine/Photobiomodulation in Starnberg, Germany. In addition, Farzad is an expert scientific advisor for ProNeuroLIGHT LLC in Phoenix, AZ. He has contributed to more than 35 scientific peer-reviewed publications and four book chapters, and has been an invited speaker at various national and international conferences. His primary research focus is photobiomodulation therapy in neurorehabilitation. Over the past six years, Farzad has had highly productive collaborations with many universities and photomedicine-related companies worldwide, including Neurosciences Research Center (Tabriz, Iran), Dell Medical School (Austin, TX), Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA), Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA), Wellman Center for Photomedicine (Boston, MA), National University of Ireland (Galway, Ireland), Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Wroclaw, Poland), QuietMind Foundation (Elkins Park, PA), LiteCure LLC (Newark, DE), VieLight Inc (Toronto, Canada), Niraxx Light Therapeutics (Irvine, CA), CeraThrive LLC (Minneapolis, MN), and Neuropathy Treatment Centers of America (Phoenix, AZ), to advance the science and technology and elucidate mechanisms of photobiomodulation in the brain

Paolo Cassano, M.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and Director of Photobiomodulation at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Division of Neuropsychiatry and the MGH Depression Clinical and Research Program. He graduated from the MGH-McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Program in June 2009. Since 2009, he has served as principal investigator (PI) on multiple studies on transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) for several neuropsychiatric disorders, such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), sponsored by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD), the Dupont Warren/Livingston Fellowship from Harvard Medical School, and private companies. These groundbreaking projects - in collaboration with the MGH Wellman Center for Photomedicine - have led to promising results and demonstrated the preliminary efficacy of near-infrared radiation for the treatment of mood disorders and for ameliorating cognition. Considerable press attention stemmed from these studies, with CNN and Washington Post coverage at the national level. He is actively pursuing the identification of biological targets of the effects of tPBM at the MGH Laboratory for Neuropsychiatry and Neuromodulation, where he has been the PI on a pilot study to investigate the impact of tPBM on cerebral blood flow (Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy - DCS), on brain electrical activity (electroencephalography - EEG), autonomic reactivity (heart rate variability - HRV and skin conductance - SCR), and cognition in healthy subjects. Dr. Cassano is particularly interested in studying tPBM, as a pro-cognitive intervention, in patients with cognitive impairment and has reported with other groups on tPBM to treat chronic traumatic brain injury and Down syndrome and enhance cognition in healthy volunteers. Dr. Cassano's tPBM research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute of Aging (NIA), the Alzheimer Association "Part the Cloud," and the Down Syndrome Research Foundation (UK). In Nov 2016, he co-founded a neurotech company, Niraxx Light Therapeutics Inc., to facilitate the technology transfer from translational research to readily available products for the general public.

Saeed Sadigh-Eteghad, M.Pill, Ph.D., is a principal investigator and an Associate Professor at the Neurosciences Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. He was trained as a translational neuroscientist and received his Ph.D. from Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. His research interests lie in the areas of learning and memory mechanisms, brain aging, Alzheimer's disease, nicotine, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, brain photobiomodulation, and cognitive rehabilitation. He works with various researchers at different levels, including post-doctoral fellows, visiting scientists, and graduate students. Several funding agencies support his research program. He has published several peer-reviewed articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and international abstracts. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences. Further, he has several projects in progress at various stages of completion and has been a visiting researcher at universities in Denmark and Japan.

Javad Mahmoudi, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the Neurosciences Research Center of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, where he has been an academic staff member since 2014. He completed his undergraduate studies at Azad University and received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the same university. His first area of research is the development of therapeutic strategies for the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions. The second area focuses on the treatments for emotional and cognitive impairments resulting from stressors factors, including spatial restriction and insomnia, as well as noise and heat stresses. Dr. Mahmoudi is a member of the Iranian Neuroscience and the Iranian Physiology and Pharmacology Societies.

Farzin Kamari, M.D., M.P.H., is an accomplished researcher with considerable experience in computational neuroscience, medicine, and public health. He currently serves as a research associate at the Department of Neurophysiology within the Institute of Physiology at the University of Tübingen in Germany, and is additionally affiliated with the International Max Planck Research School for the Mechanisms of Mental Function and Dysfunction, also located in Tübingen, Germany. He earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees from the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Dr. Kamari's research interests are focused at the intersection of neuroscience, medicine, and technology, with a particular emphasis on leveraging technical and computational approaches to enhance brain function and mental health. He has honed his unique interdisciplinary skills through his achievements as an entrepreneur, including co-founding Synaptic ApS, an innovative company based in Odense, Denmark. The company specialized in AI applications in medicine and has secured several rounds of funding from prominent sources, including the EU Horizon 2020 program and other funding agencies. Throughout his career, Dr. Kamari has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications in internationally esteemed scientific journals and has contributed to a number of patents in the fields of diagnostics, neuroscience, and medicine

Michael R Hamblin, Ph.D., was a Principal Investigator at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Associate Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School for 25 years, and is now a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and affiliated faculty at Radiation Biology Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. He gained his PhD in organic chemistry from Nottingham Trent University in England. His research interests include photodynamic therapy, photobiomodulation, drug delivery, nanomedicine, and tissue engineering. His research program was supported by NIH, CDMRP, USAFOSR and CIMIT. He has published over 750 peer-reviewed articles, over 150 conference proceedings, book ch^ 90,000 citations. He has authored/edited 36 textbooks on PDT, photomedicine, and nanomedicine including 13 SPIE proceedings. Dr Hamblin was elected as a Fellow of SPIE in 2011, received the 1st Endre Mester Lifetime Achievement Award from NAALT in 2017, the Outstanding Career Award from the Dose Response Society, the 1st Ali Javan award for Photobiomodulation Basic Science Research from WALT in 2018, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from European Medical Laser Association in 2022.

Farzad Salehpour 是德州大學奧斯汀分校行為神經科學的博士生。他在伊朗塔布里茲醫科大學獲得醫學物理碩士學位。目前，他在美國馬里蘭州米勒斯維爾的 THOR Photomedicine Inc. 擔任研究助理。他還在德國斯塔恩貝格的光醫學/光生物調變學院進行腦部光生物調變的培訓課程和講座。此外，Farzad 是位於亞利桑那州鳳凰城的 ProNeuroLIGHT LLC 的專家科學顧問。他已發表超過 35 篇經過同行評審的科學論文和四個書籍章節，並在各種國內外會議上擔任受邀演講者。他的主要研究重點是神經康復中的光生物調變療法。在過去六年中，Farzad 與全球多所大學和光醫學相關公司進行了高效的合作，包括伊朗塔布里茲的神經科學研究中心、德州奧斯汀的 Dell 醫學院、麻省醫學院（波士頓）、麻省總醫院（波士頓）、麻省總醫院的 Wellman 光醫學中心（波士頓）、愛爾蘭國立大學（戈爾韋）、波蘭弗羅茨瓦夫科技大學、賴特邁德基金會（賓夕法尼亞州埃爾金斯公園）、LiteCure LLC（德拉瓦州紐瓦克）、VieLight Inc（加拿大多倫多）、Niraxx Light Therapeutics（加州爾灣）、CeraThrive LLC（明尼阿波利斯）和美國神經病治療中心（亞利桑那州鳳凰城），以推進光生物調變的科學和技術，並闡明其在大腦中的機制。

Paolo Cassano, M.D., Ph.D. 是哈佛醫學院精神病學的助理教授，並擔任麻省總醫院（MGH）神經精神病學部門的光生物調變主任。他於 2009 年 6 月畢業於 MGH-McLean 成人精神病學住院醫師計畫。自 2009 年以來，他擔任多項針對多種神經精神疾病（如重度憂鬱症和廣泛性焦慮症）的經顱光生物調變（tPBM）研究的主要研究者，這些研究由大腦與行為研究基金會（NARSAD）、哈佛醫學院的杜邦華倫/利文斯頓獎學金以及私人公司贊助。這些開創性的項目與麻省總醫院的 Wellman 光醫學中心合作，取得了有希望的結果，並顯示近紅外輻射在治療情緒障礙和改善認知方面的初步療效。這些研究引起了相當大的媒體關注，CNN 和華盛頓郵報在全國範圍內進行了報導。他目前在麻省總醫院神經精神病學和神經調節實驗室積極尋找 tPBM 影響的生物學目標，並擔任一項研究的主要研究者，該研究調查 tPBM 對健康受試者的腦血流（擴散相關光譜法 - DCS）、腦電活動（腦電圖 - EEG）、自主反應（心率變異性 - HRV 和皮膚電導 - SCR）及認知的影響。Cassano 博士特別有興趣研究 tPBM 作為一種促進認知的介入，並已與其他團隊報告 tPBM 用於治療慢性創傷性腦損傷和唐氏症，並增強健康志願者的認知。Cassano 博士的 tPBM 研究由國家心理健康研究所（NIMH）、國家老化研究所（NIA）、阿茲海默症協會的「Part the Cloud」計畫以及唐氏症研究基金會（英國）資助。2016 年 11 月，他共同創立了一家神經科技公司 Niraxx Light Therapeutics Inc.，以促進從轉化研究到公眾可用產品的技術轉移。