Light exerts an important and profound influence on human physiology and behaviour. Within the last twenty years, how we think about light has fundamentally changed, moving away from the orthodoxy that cones and rods are the only photoreceptors in the human retina, to a more complete picture incorporating the melanopsin-containing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs). In a rare case where basic science has affected practice rather quickly, the discovery that there is a special class of neurons in the retina directly sensitive to short-wavelength light has caused a brouhaha in the lighting industry as well, leading to the circus of ‘‘human-centric lighting’’. We are still only at the beginning of understanding how all photoreceptors in the human retina contribute to the various processes typically summarised as ‘‘nonimage-forming’’ or ‘‘non-visual’’, e.g. the suppression of melatonin by light at night, circadian phase shifting, pupil size modulation, and modulation of the cardiovascular system and alertness by light. Importantly, these are not the same functions, and neither are they unitary, and there is mounting evidence that melatonin suppression and circadian phase shifting are separable. Another open question is how the melanopsin-mediated and cone-mediated control of pupil size, which regulates retinal illuminance, interacts with the ipRGC-mediated suppression of melatonin, or phase shifting. With more research on the horizon, it is most important to produce scientific work that is transparent and reproducible. Eventually, the scientific process relies partly on the independent replication of findings. It is through the totality of evidence, not single studies, that the scientific community accumulates knowledge and generates implications for policy and practice. Replication requires an accurate description of the methods used in a given study but what is the necessary and sufficient information for replicating a study? Addressing the need to streamline and standardize reporting of light exposure and lighting conditions, a set of minimum reporting guidelines for describing the lighting conditions in laboratory experiments in chronobiology, sleep medicine and environmental psychology have been proposed in a tutorial paper entitled How to Report Light Exposure in Human Chronobiology and Sleep Research Experiments. In addition to these minimum and necessary descriptions, a set of optional items for reporting, such as estimates of the participants’ pupil size for calculations of retinal intensity is also proposed. The next page provides the full set of these descriptions. We incorporate the recently published standard CIE S 026/E:2018 (DOI: 10.25039/S026.2018) which provides a set of calculation procedures in a retinally referenced framework into the reporting guidelines. Guidelines are guidelines, and not the law. I hope that this tutorial provides a gentle introduction into often-intricate questions for measuring, documenting and reporting light exposure. I invite authors, reviewers and editors to follow, promote and enforce our minimum reporting guidelines. Lighting Res. Technol. 2019; 51: 818–819

中文翻译：

---

意见：面向未来的昼夜节律研究

光对人体生理和行为产生重要而深远的影响。在过去的二十年里，我们对光的看法发生了根本性的变化，从视锥细胞和视杆细胞是人类视网膜中唯一的光感受器的正统观念转变为包含黑视蛋白的内在光敏视网膜神经节细胞 (ipRGCs) 的更完整图片）。在基础科学迅速影响实践的罕见案例中，视网膜中有一类特殊的神经元对短波光直接敏感的发现也在照明行业引起了轰动，从而引发了“马戏团”。 “以人为本的照明”。我们仍处于了解人类视网膜中所有光感受器如何参与通常概括为“非图像形成”或“非视觉”的各种过程的开始阶段，例如夜间光线对褪黑激素的抑制，昼夜节律相移、瞳孔大小调制以及心血管系统和光的警觉性调制。重要的是，这些功能不同，也不是单一的，而且越来越多的证据表明褪黑激素抑制和昼夜节律相移是可分离的。另一个悬而未决的问题是，黑色素介导和锥体介导的瞳孔大小控制（调节视网膜照度）如何与 ipRGC 介导的褪黑激素抑制或相移相互作用。随着更多研究的展开，最重要的是产生透明和可重复的科学工作。最终，科学过程部分依赖于研究结果的独立复制。科学界是通过整体证据而非单一研究积累知识并对政策和实践产生影响。复制需要对给定研究中使用的方法进行准确描述，但是复制研究的必要和充分信息是什么？满足简化和标准化曝光和照明条件报告的需要，一套最低报告指南，用于描述时间生物学实验室实验中的照明条件，睡眠医学和环境心理学已在题为“如何报告人类时间生物学和睡眠研究实验中的光照暴露”的教程论文中提出。除了这些最低限度和必要的描述之外，还提出了一组用于报告的可选项目，例如用于计算视网膜强度的参与者瞳孔大小的估计。下一页提供了这些描述的完整集合。我们将最近发布的标准 CIE S 026/E:2018 (DOI: 10.25039/S026.2018) 纳入报告指南中，该标准在视网膜参考框架中提供了一组计算程序。指导方针是指导方针，而不是法律。我希望本教程能够温和地介绍测量、记录和报告曝光量的复杂问题。我邀请作者，审稿人和编辑遵循、宣传和执行我们的最低报告准则。照明资源 技术。2019; 51: 818–819