Interview about light therapy with Dr. Larry Carr

Dr. Larry Carr and his wife.

Dr. Larry Carr is a former BYU graduate and BYU Hall of Fame Football player. He received a Ph.D. from BYU in exercise physiology and taught at the university level until CTE-like symptoms forced him to step down. 

Learn more about the light therapy devices used in research and available online

In his battle with CTE-like symptoms, Dr. Carr tried photobiomodulation - a form of light therapy that shines near-infrared light into the brain to increase cellular energy levels and reduce the build-up of toxins. He is now a leading advocate for photobiomodulation therapy. Dr. Carr is currently working as a hands-on consultant at BYU and The University of Utah for five different pilot trials to research the effects of photobiomodulation on CTE-like symptoms. 

Concussion Alliance intern Josh Wu and co-founders Malayka Gormally and Conor Gormally interviewed Dr. Carr in December about his experience with photobiomodulation. The following interview has been edited for clarity. See our Photobiomodulation page for additional information about light therapy and light therapy devices. 

What is your story with traumatic brain injury, and how did that lead to photobiomodulation?

Conor Gormally:

We were wondering if we could talk about how you got that passion for photobiomodulation and your background in it. You said it's changed your life, could you talk a little bit more about that?

Dr. Larry Carr:

I was diagnosed with a football-related brain injury about ten years ago. The symptoms of CTE hit me very strongly around 2009 and 2010. It was debilitating. The progress of the disease was very gradual for many years, where I would just say weird things and forget things. But it started to accelerate quite dramatically, and it came to a point where it was just too painful for me, and my wife. My emotions became very violent, all-consuming. 

My wife and I decided that a Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) mission might help relieve some of the stress and anxiety. I'd be serving, doing something virtuous. But it didn't help; in fact, my symptoms got worse. The anxiety from the newness and the unfamiliarity of the experience just made it worse.

And prior to that, I'd done a lot of research on CTE, and Ann McKee and Robert Stern's name kept coming up. When we were on our mission trip, I decided to email Dr. McKee, and to my surprise, she agreed to see us. She told us that all the symptoms that I talked about were very similar to the deceased patients that she sees. Unfortunately, all of her patients are deceased people who had injured brains. 

Dr. McKee referred me to Dr. Naeser, who explained photobiomodulation to me. (Dr. Naeser is a researcher at the VA Boston Medical Center and is a Research Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine.) I have a PhD in exercise physiology and human physiology, and I'd never heard about it. And yet, because of the science that she went through, I was willing to consider it. Dr. Naesar convinced me to come three days a week for six weeks to get treated with photobiomodulation. And the results, not just the emotional results my wife noticed, but the data, the MRI images, the neurocognitive changes, were really phenomenal. They were all consistent across the board too. The next step, though, was to go off it for eight weeks, to see what would happen. For the first few weeks, everything was fine. But by the end of the eight weeks, I was right back where I was when I started. 

The next part of it was to go back on the treatment, not in the hospital, but at home, which is the only practical way of treating this. That's when I started using Vielight at home. We saw the same kind of benefits as I did being treated in the hospital. I'll probably use it for the rest of my life. My wife claims that she's got her husband back after we've been married for nearly 50 years. It's something that I have a hard time really expressing, but it is. 

[See our blog post which has in-depth information about the photobiomodulation pilot study that Dr. Carr participated in.]

Why isn't Photobiomodulation therapy more well known? 

Josh Wu: 

I personally never heard about photobiomodulation therapy until now. Why do you think it is not more well-known in the athletic community?

Dr. Larry Carr:

It's becoming better known, but it's probably more well known for performance enhancement than it is for treating or preventing head and brain injuries. There are quite a few athletes that use near-infrared light beds because they enhance their performance, increase their training ability, and so on. But it's not well known in terms of treatment of brain injuries, because there's no money in it. I've got over 8,000 articles on it showing the biological effects, and they're all positive, but it just is not well known. It's not pushed by the pharmaceutical companies. 

Combatting the "alternative medicine" stigma and just getting the word out are probably the two biggest challenges in promoting this kind of therapy. I had a couple of articles published about my story in the Salt Lake City area. The idea is getting photobiomodulation out of the realm of alternative type stuff and into well-recognized therapies. 

Now it's starting to get a little bit more traction. We have people at the University of Utah doing the research out of the school of medicine, and we're working with a national consortium of TBI and concussion experts. Recently, there was a neurosurgeon who approached us, asking about photobiomodulation for his patients. I think once we start to see the results on a wider scale than just one or two people, I think it'll start to gain some traction.

Interview continues below

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Can you describe the clinical trials you're involved in?

Josh Wu:

Are you involved in clinical trials with photobiomodulation? And if so, could you describe them?

Dr. Larry Carr:

We're doing pilot studies right now. We've got five different pilot studies, one has started, and the four others are in the works. One involves ex-athletes of collision sports across the board. We've got participants that played football, soccer, biking (where they had fallen off several times), extreme sports, ice hockey. But they're all ex-collision athletes suffering or experiencing some sort of CTE-like symptoms. That's the basis of this study that we're currently conducting. The goal of that study is to get some really good data, so we can use this pilot data to apply to the NIH and other grant research funding organizations, to get much larger trials going.

The others involve a survey study of firefighters in Las Vegas. We're starting to look at women's soccer players at Brigham Young University, just after the New Year. We're going to look at BYU football players, current football players, to see if we can mitigate the effects of collisions in football on the brain and any changes that happened there. We're also working with Vielight to do a survey study of some 21,000 people to see if photobiomodulation has impacted their immune system, as far as colds and flu, specifically if they've had any luck in preventing the COVID virus.

Interview continues below

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You can purchase the device used in these studies, the Vielight Neuro Gamma. Vielight has provided our readers with a 10% discount; use coupon code BRAINHEALTH10 at Vielight.com. Vielight offers an 80% refund policy, valid within six months from the time of purchase. Vielight donates a small commission to Concussion Alliance at no cost to you.

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What do you have to say to people who are skeptical about photobiomodulation therapy?

Josh Wu:

I'm sure that with any new technology, there's going to be some skepticism surrounding it. What would you have to say to people who aren't willing to try this or who don't believe that this therapy will work?

Dr. Larry Carr:

Well, I'm not trying to convince anybody that wants to be a skeptic. I tell them to look at the science, look at my results, look at my data. Everybody at every medical facility has something that will work, something that will make people feel better. I'm not trying to compete with just saying, "I feel better, so try this." The only way I can get it from people saying, "I'm glad you feel better," to taking it seriously, is research and making the results evidence-based. If that happens, then it will be a lot easier to get it accepted. 

Football doesn't want to admit that they have a real serious problem and that the nature of football is inherently unhealthy for people. But near-infrared light is starting to become recognized as a performance enhancer. If you can get them to understand the benefits of near-infrared light, of making them stronger and faster, then the other benefits will come with it. They'll be healing their brains, and at the same time, they're becoming better athletes. It’s the perfect solution.

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