Why Does Flashing Lights Cause Seizures

Bold contrasting visual patterns such as stripes or checks overexposure to video games.

Why does flashing lights cause seizures.

People with photosensitive epilepsy have seizures that are triggered by. The frequency or speed of flashing light that is most likely to cause seizures varies from person to person. Generally flashing lights most likely to trigger seizures are between the frequency of 5 to 30 flashes per second hertz. Pse affects approximately one in 4 000 people 5 of those with epilepsy.

It is believed that a combination of these factors will trigger the attacks. The culprit was a sequence during which red and blue lights flashed onscreen after a bomb exploded onscreen which makes sense given that red and blue stimuli have been tied to seizures for over. A small percentage of those nearly 50 million people between 3 to 5 percent have photosensitive epilepsy which means light can trigger seizures and other symptoms of the condition. Photosensitive epilepsy pse is a form of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli that form patterns in time or space such as flashing lights.

Causes of the seizures may also include the brightness of the flashing lights the contrast with background lighting the distance between the person and the light source the wavelength of the light and the person s eyes being opened or closed to the source 2.