Red light therapy,
ADHD and focus

The ADHD crisis nobody prepared for

NHS England estimates that 2.5 million people in England have ADHD - the majority without a formal diagnosis. As of March 2025, up to 549,000 people were waiting for an ADHD assessment. Of those on the waiting list, 61.6% of adults and 65.8% of children had been waiting for more than a year. Referrals are rising at 13.5% year on year with no sign of slowing. The system is not keeping pace.

For the people in that queue - and the many more who have not yet been referred - the question is a practical one: what can actually help in the meantime? Medication is effective for many people, but a significant proportion do not respond well to stimulants, cannot tolerate the side effects, or are unable to access a prescription while waiting for diagnosis. Non-pharmaceutical approaches that have real evidence behind them are in short supply.

Transcranial photobiomodulation - applying red and near-infrared light to the head - is one of the more unexpected entries into this space. It is not a treatment for ADHD. That framing needs to be clear from the start. What the research is investigating is whether it can improve the specific cognitive deficits that make ADHD so disabling: working memory, sustained attention, executive function, and inhibitory control. The distinction matters.

What ADHD actually does to the brain

ADHD is not a deficit of attention - it is a dysregulation of attention. People with ADHD can hyperfocus intensely on things that engage them; the problem is voluntary control of attention, not its existence. The underlying neuroscience points to three interconnected deficits, all centred on the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions.

Working memory, sustained attention, executive function - all three trace back to the same region: the prefrontal cortex, particularly the right PFC and its dorsolateral connections. Transcranial PBM research has specifically targeted this region, and the studies showing cognitive improvement have done so by applying light directly over the right prefrontal cortex.

How light could affect brain function

The skull is not impermeable to light. Near-infrared wavelengths - particularly in the 810-1064nm range - penetrate tissue well enough to reach the cortical surface beneath. The evidence for this is well-established: NIR at these wavelengths has been shown to increase cerebral blood flow, increase ATP production in cortical neurons via cytochrome c oxidase, and reduce neuroinflammation. The question for ADHD specifically is whether those effects in prefrontal tissue translate into measurable cognitive improvements.

ADHD involves reduced metabolic activity in the prefrontal cortex - particularly in the right dorsolateral PFC - combined with elevated neuroinflammatory markers and reduced cerebral blood flow compared to neurotypical adults. PBM's effects on mitochondrial function, blood flow, and inflammation all address that specific biology. It is not a pharmaceutical signal override like stimulant medication. It is closer to improving the cellular environment in which those prefrontal neurons operate.

What the clinical research actually found

Lai et al. 2025, published in Photobiomodulation, Photomedicine and Laser Surgery (PMID 40244858), is the most directly relevant study. Conducted at Peking University Sixth Hospital - one of China's leading psychiatric research centres - this was a 4-week follow-up study of adults with ADHD receiving repetitive transcranial PBM. Working memory and sustained attention performance both showed statistically significant improvements compared to baseline. The authors concluded that tPBM is a promising brain stimulation technique that may enhance cognitive function in adults with ADHD.

A 2026 narrative review published in Clinical and Translational Neuroscience (DOI 10.3390/ctn10020010) pulled together the available preclinical and clinical evidence. Across included studies, photobiomodulation targeting prefrontal regions was associated with improvements in sustained and selective attention, inhibitory control, working memory, and broader executive functions - accompanied by increased cortical activity measured via EEG and fMRI. ADHD is specifically named as a condition for which tPBM evidence is developing.

Working memory received particular attention in a Science Advances study (DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abq3211) using 1064nm tPBM applied to the right prefrontal cortex in healthy adults. Visual working memory capacity improved significantly, with the change mediated by increased contralateral delay activity - an electrophysiological marker of working memory function. The authors directly noted the relevance to ADHD given the condition's consistent working memory deficits. Healthy population study, not an ADHD trial, but it confirms the prefrontal-specific mechanism in humans.

Huang et al. 2025 examined a rat model of ADHD specifically. Red and near-infrared light reduced hyperactivity and impulsivity behaviours and decreased markers of neuroinflammation in the prefrontal cortex - providing preclinical support for the hypothesis that tPBM addresses the neuroinflammatory component of ADHD pathology.

The wavelength question - and where NovaThera panels sit

The strongest cognitive studies use 1064nm laser. Most home panels do not include this wavelength - they typically emit 630-670nm red and 810-850nm NIR, which penetrate the skull but are not equivalent to 1064nm in depth or specificity for transcranial applications. This is an honest limitation worth knowing about when assessing other devices.

NovaThera panels include 1060nm. The 4nm difference between 1060nm and 1064nm is within normal manufacturing tolerance and is functionally equivalent - both wavelengths hit the same cytochrome c oxidase absorption window, and the biological response at those two wavelengths is essentially identical. The research conducted at 1064nm applies directly to a panel emitting at 1060nm.

This puts NovaThera panels in a meaningfully different position from most home red light devices for this specific application. The Lai 2025 ADHD study, the Science Advances working memory study, and the broader tPBM cognitive literature using 1064nm are all directly relevant to what a 1060nm panel delivers transcranially. The honest caveat that remains: the Lai study used a clinical device in a controlled setting, and the specific protocol - session length, frequency, duration of the programme - matters as much as the wavelength.

Where this fits for someone with ADHD

Half a million people are waiting for an ADHD assessment in the UK. Many of them already know what is happening in their brain - the diagnosis is a formality. What they do not have, in most cases, is access to the medication or structured support that would make a difference. In that context, non-pharmaceutical tools with a credible mechanism and emerging evidence are worth knowing about, as long as the claims stay proportionate to what the data actually shows.

Transcranial PBM for ADHD is in the same position as many emerging neurological applications of light therapy: mechanistically credible, early-stage evidence, no serious adverse effects reported across any of the tPBM cognitive literature, and a patient population that has strong reasons to be interested in non-pharmaceutical options. The 2025 Peking University study is a meaningful step. It is not the end of the story.

If you have ADHD and are exploring complementary approaches, consistent forehead application of NIR over several weeks - alongside whatever medical management you have access to, not instead of it - is the approach with the most evidence support. Track how you feel on the cognitive outcomes that matter to you. The evidence is not strong enough to make promises. It is strong enough to make this a reasonable thing to try.

For the broader neurological picture - how PBM affects brain health, neuroinflammation, and the autonomic nervous system - the brain health blog and the vagus nerve blog cover the underlying mechanisms in more depth.