The Effect of Mobile Telephone Electromagnetic Field on Human Brain Bioelectric Activity and Information Processing Speed
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17140/PCSOJ-3-131Keywords:
Electromagnetic field, Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, Information processing speed, Mobile telephones, Electroencephalogram (EEG), Mobile telephone electromagnetic field (MP-EMF), Solomon-four group designAbstract
Aim: This study aimed to examine the effect of a mobile telephone electromagnetic field (MPEMF) on human brain bioelectric activity, at the T3 location, and information processing speed. Human brain bioelectric activity was assessed by calculating power spectral density (PSD) values from electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, and information processing speed was assessed by the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT). Eighty-four people (ages 18-25) participated in this study. Materials and Methods: Each subject had two consecutive 15 minute single-channel EEGs (baseline and treatment) taken with either a T3/T5 or T3/CZ monopolar montage configuration. The treatment EEGs consisted of either exposure to an MP-EMF or a placebo telephone with no electromagnetic field. The mobile telephone or placebo telephone was held by the test subjects and against their left ear for the duration of the 15 minute treatment EEG. Subjects were blind to the possibility of exposure to a placebo telephone. The PASAT is subject to practice effect, so a Solomon four-group design was implemented. Half of the groups received a pre-test and post-test, while the other half only received a post-test. Results: A three-way mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the PSD values, and a meta-analytic approach was used to analyze the PASAT scores. Neither set of data, PSD measurements or PASAT scores, produced statistically significant results. Conclusion: These results indicate that 15 minutes of exposure to an MP-EMF does not produce a statistically significant effect on human brain bioelectric activity at the T3 location. While the PASAT scores also indicate no effect on cognitive functions from MP-EMF exposure, many confounding factors, like the sensitivity and the time of the administration of the PASAT and duration of MP-EMF exposure, may have influenced the statistics. Further research controlling for these factors is suggested.
References
Schöborn F, Burkhardt M, Kuster N. Differences in energy absorption between heads of adults and children in the near field of sources. Health Phys. 1998; 74(2): 160-168.
Cinel C, Boldini A, Russo R, Fox E. Effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields on an auditory order threshold task. Bioelectromagnetics. 2007; 28(6): 493-496. doi: 10.1002/ bem.20321
Mohan M, Khaliq F, Panwar A, Vaney N. Does chronic ex-posure to mobile phones affect cognition? Funct Neurol. 2016; 31(1): 47-51. doi: 10.11138/FNeur/2016.31.1.047
Roggeveen S, Os JV, Viechtbauer W, Lousberg R. EEG changes due to experimentally induced 3G mobile phone ra-diation. PLoS One. 2015; 10(6): 1-13. doi: 10.1371/journal. pone.0129496
Tyagi A, Duhan M, Bhatia D. Effect of mobile phone radiation on brain activity GSM vs CDMA. IJSTM. 2011; 2(2): 1-5.
Edelstyn N, Oldershaw A. The acute effects of exposure to the electromagnetic field emitted by mobile phones on human atten-tion. Neuroreport. 2002; 13(1): 119-121.
Forn C, Belenguer A, Parcet-Ibars MA, Ávila C. Information-processing speed is the primary deficit underlying the poor performance of multiple sclerosis patients in the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT). J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2008; 30(7): 789-796. doi: 10.1080/13803390701779560
Gronwall DM. Paced Auditory Serial-Addition Task: A mea-sure of recovery from concussion. Percept Mot Skills. 1977; 44(2): 367-373. doi: 10.2466/pms.1977.44.2.367
Gronwall D, Sampson HH. The Psychological Effects of Con-cussion. Wellington, New Zealand: Oxford University Press; 1974.
Rogers JM, Fox AM. Event-related potential practice effects on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT). Adv Cogn Psychol. 2012; 8(4): 281-291.
Solomon RL. An extension of control group design. Psychol Bull. 1949; 46(2): 137-150. doi: 10.1037/h0062958
Walton Braver MC, Braver SL. Statistical treatment of the Solomon Four-Group Design: A meta-analytic approach. Psy-chol Bull. 1988; 104(1): 150-154.
Stouffer SA, Suchman EA, Devinney LC, Star SA, Williams Jr. RM. The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life. 1st ed. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press; 1949.
Hietanen M, Kovala, T, Hämäläinen A. Human brain activ-ity during exposure to radiofrequency fields emitted by cellular phones. Scand J Work Environ Health. 2000; 26(2): 87-92.
Wu K, Sajad A, Omar S. The effect of high frequency ra-dio waves on human brain activity: An EEG study. JULS. 2009; 3(1): 50-52.
Papageorgiou CC, Nanou ED, Tsiafakis VG, et al. Acute mo-bile phone effect on pre-attentive operation. Neurosci Lett. 2006; 337(1-2): 99-103. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2005.12.001
Besset A, Espa F, Dauvilliers Y, Billiard M, Seze RD. No effect on cognitive function from daily mobile phone use. Bio-electromagnetics, 2005; 26(2): 102-108.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All content published in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences (PCS) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work — including for commercial purposes — provided appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source.
