Does the Brain Detect 3G Mobile Phone Radiation Peaks? An Explorative In-Depth Analysis of an Experimental Study

This study aimed to investigate whether third generation mobile phone radiation peaks result in event related potentials. Thirty-one healthy females participated. In this single-blind, cross-over design, a 15 minute mobile phone exposure was compared to two 15 minute sham phone conditions, one preceding and one following the exposure condition. Each participant was measured on two separate days, where mobile phone placement was varied between the ear and heart. EEG activity and radiofrequency radiation were recorded jointly. Epochs of 1200ms, starting 200ms before and lasting until 1000ms after the onset of a radiation peak, were extracted from the exposure condition. Control epochs were randomly selected from the two sham phone conditions. The main a-priori hypothesis to be tested concerned an increase of the area in the 240-500ms post-stimulus interval, in the exposure session with ear-placement. Using multilevel regression analyses the placement*exposure interaction effect was significant for the frontal and central cortical regions, indicating that only in the mobile phone exposure with ear-placement an enlarged cortical reactivity was found. Post-hoc analyses based on visual inspection of the ERPs showed a second significantly increased area between 500-1000ms post-stimulus for almost every EEG location measured. It was concluded that, when a dialing mobile phone is placed on the ear, its radiation, although unconsciously, is electrically detected by the brain. The question of whether or not this cortical reactivity results in a negative health outcome has to be answered in future longitudinal experiments.

本研究旨在探究第三代移动电话辐射峰值是否会导致事件相关电位。31名健康女性参与了这项研究。在该单盲交叉实验设计中，将15分钟的移动电话暴露与两种15分钟的模拟电话条件进行了比较，一种在暴露条件之前，一种在之后。每位参与者分别在两天内接受测量，移动电话的位置在耳朵和心脏之间交替。同时记录了脑电图活动和射频辐射。从暴露条件中提取了1200毫秒的时程，起始时间为辐射峰值出现前200毫秒，持续至1000毫秒。对照组时程从两种模拟电话条件中随机选取。主要假设为：在耳朵放置电话的暴露实验中，刺激后240-500毫秒间期的面积增加。通过多层次回归分析，发现放置与暴露的交互作用对额叶和中央皮层区域具有显著性，表明仅在耳朵放置电话的移动电话暴露中，发现了皮层反应性的增强。基于对事件相关电位的视觉检查进行的后验分析显示，在几乎所有测量的脑电图位置，刺激后500-1000毫秒间期出现了第二个显著增加的面积。结论是，当移动电话放置在耳朵上时，尽管是无意识的，其辐射仍被大脑电生理地检测到。是否这种皮层反应性会导致负面的健康结果，需要在未来的纵向实验中予以解答。