Our brains are glowing, and scientists want to figure out why
The human brain is a fascinating organ. Not only are we just starting to truly discover how the brain learns, but we’re finding out even more new things about one of our body’s most important pieces. For instance, according to new findings, the human brain is almost constantly glowing, and scientists have no idea why. But they want to find out.
It's strange to imagine your brain emitting light, but almost everything in the world emits photons of some type, which means everything is emitting some type of light. However, most of the time this light is in a part of the spectrum that the human eye cannot see.
When it comes to the human brain, researchers believe that the glowing seen within the brain may come from biomolecular reactions, which generate energy and thus create photons as a byproduct. As such, the more energy the tissue burns, the more of a glow it emits, which means the brain should glow brightest out of all the tissue found in our bodies.
The authors behind a new study believe that the relationship between this bioluminescence and brain activity could hint at a deeper role for light to play in the brain. But this isn’t exactly a new idea, either. Humans have been debating the role of biophotons in the human body, as well as the part they play in cellular communication, since the 1920s, at least.
That’s part of why the researchers behind this new study decided to pay so much attention to the brain. Upon closer inspection, they found that the brain does indeed glow thank to the production of photons when energy is generated. Additionally, they found that the presence of light is much greater when captured directly within a living brain, versus looking at a few cells on a petri dish.
Of course, this still doesn’t tell us the exact role that biophotons play in brain activity or cellular communication. But it does at least teach us a bit more about the brain, and give scientists another thread to follow as they search for deeper answers.
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Our brains are glowing, and scientists want to figure out why originally appeared on BGR.com on Mon, 23 Jun 2025 at 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.