The main processes involved in them and their importance for the beginning of human life have only been clarified recently. There is a significant convergence between the most up-to-date biological research and the “Birth Theory” by Massimo Fagioli, who more than 50 years ago in Istinct of death and knowledge described the determining role of light in the origin of psychic activity as it impacts on brain matter and gives rise to human mental activity, inner movement and “lived” time. Light energy acts on the brain substance by setting in motion so-called “epigenetic” processes, which were previously silent. A new vision of the effects of light energy on the brain substance appeared in 1998, when Provencio discovered a new photoreceptor, melanopsin, in retinal ganglion cells: it does not act on visual processes, that is, those responsible for image formation. Light enters the body through the eyes: cones and rods are essential for living beings to have a visual map of the world, while ganglion cells help to activate numerous non-image-forming brain structures and functions. The electromagnetic spectrum perceived by the human eye is between 400-700 nm in wavelength. Recent studies have shown that non-visual responses to light are very sensitive to the blue monochromatic spectrum with a wavelength between 420-480 nm, this sensitivity coincides precisely with that of melanopsin. Only the ganglion cell is sensitive enough to be able to respond to a single photon, achieving this even in a condition of apparent darkness. Deeply blind people have been shown to have responses to light through the suprachiasmatic nucleus system, the main circadian clock. The light energy activates at birth through nerve connections directly and immediately both the suprachiasmatic nucleus and the sleep centers, giving them new functions. The short waves of blue light induce immediate and direct responses in the subcortical thalamic structures and indirectly reach the cerebral cortex. The long waves of the spectrum to which cones and rods are sensitive reach directly the visual cortex.
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