Off topic: 4G cellphones - just 30 minutes causes change in brainwaves - RCT with sham

Created September 2013

The alteration of spontaneous low frequency oscillations caused by acute electromagnetic fields exposure.

Clin Neurophysiol. 2013 Sep 4. pii: S1388-2457(13)00976-0. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2013.07.018.

Lv B, Chen Z, Wu T, Shao Q, Yan D, Ma L, cjr.malin@vip.163.com, Lu K, Xie Y.

China Academy of Telecommunication Research of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

OBJECTIVE: The motivation of this study is to evaluate the possible alteration of regional resting state brain activity induced by the acute radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure (30min) of Long Term Evolution (LTE) signal.

METHODS: We designed a controllable near-field LTE RF-EMF exposure environment. Eighteen subjects participated in a double-blind, crossover, randomized and counterbalanced experiment including two sessions (real and sham exposure) . The radiation source was close to the right ear. Then the resting state fMRI signals of human brain were collected before and after the exposure in both sessions. We measured the amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and fractional ALFF (fALFF) to characterize the spontaneous brain activity.

RESULTS: We found the decreased ALFF value around in left superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, right medial frontal gyrus and right paracentral lobule after the real exposure. And the decreased fALFF value was also detected in right medial frontal gyrus and right paracentral lobule.

CONCLUSIONS: The study provided the evidences that 30min LTE RF-EMF exposure modulated the spontaneous low frequency fluctuations in some brain regions.

SIGNIFICANCE: With resting state fMRI, we found the alteration of spontaneous low frequency fluctuations induced by the acute LTE RF-EMF exposure.

Copyright © 2013 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Note by Henry Lahore of VitaminDWiki

As an electronics engineer I had investigated the previous generation of cellphones and decided that they could cause problems

So I made a web page on the 15 ways to reduce cell phone radiation.

This is the first study I have seen with LTE/4G technology.

It appears to be an extremely well-designed study

GreenMedInfo has a nice description of the study

References by the study

  • Aalto S, Haarala C, Brück A, Sipilä H, Hämäläinen H, Rinne JO. Mobile phone affects cerebral blood flow in humans. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2006;26:885–890

  • Anderson V, Rowley J. Measurements of skin surface temperature during mobile phone use. Bioelectromagnetics. 2007;28:159–162

  • Ashburner J, Friston KJ. Unified segmentation. Neuroimage. 2005;26:839–851

  • Bandettini PA. Twenty years of functional MRI: the science and the stories. Neuroimage. 2012;15:575–588

  • Barnes FS, Gandhi OP, Hietanen M, Kheifets L, Matthes R, McCormick DL, et al. Identification of research needs relating to potential biological or adverse health effects of wireless communications devices. Washington DC: National Academies Press; 2008;

  • Bélanger M, Allaman I, Magistretti PJ. Brain energy metabolism: focus on astrocyte-neuron metabolic cooperation. Cell Metab. 2011;14:724–738

  • Biswal BB, Yetkin FZ, Haughton VM, Hyde JS. Functional connectivity in the motor cortex of resting human brain using echo-planar MRI. Magn Reson Med. 1995;34:537–541

  • Croft RJ, Chandler JS, Burgess AP, Barry RJ, Williams JD, Clarke AR. Acute mobile phone operation affects neural function in humans. Clin Neurophysiol. 2002;113:1623–1632 Full-Text PDF (487 KB)

  • Curcio G, Ferrara M, Moroni F, D’Inzeo G, Bertini M, De Gennaro L. Is the brain influenced by a phone call? An EEG study of resting wakefulness. Neurosci Res. 2005;53:265–270

  • Curcio G, Nardo D, Perrucci MG, Pasqualetti P, Chen TL, Gratta CD, et al. Effects of mobile phone signals over BOLD response while performing a cognitive task. Clin Neurophysiol. 2012;123:129–136 Full-Text PDF (421 KB)

  • Damasio A. The feeling of what happens: body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York NY: Harcourt Brace; 1999;

  • Figley CR, Stroman PW. The role(s) of astrocytes and astrocyte activity in neurometabolism, neurovascular coupling, and the production of functional neuroimaging signals. Eur J Neurosci. 2011;33:577–588

  • Fox MD, Raichle ME. Spontaneous fluctuations in brain activity observed with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2007;8:700–711

  • Greicius MD, Krasnow B, Reiss AL, Menon V. Functional connectivity in the resting brain: a network analysis of the default mode hypothesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2003;100:253–258

  • Haarala C, Aalto S, Hautzel H, Julkunen L, Rinne JO, Lain M, et al. Effects of a 902MHz mobile phone on cerebral blood flow in humans – a PET study. NeuroReport. 2003;14:2019–2023

  • Hampson M, Peterson BS, Skudlarski P, Gatenby JC, Gore JC. Detection of functional connectivity using temporal correlations in MR images. Hum Brain Mapp. 2002;15:247–262

  • He Y, Wang L, Zang YF, Tian LX, Zhang XQ, Li KC, et al. Regional coherence changes in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease: a combined structural and resting-state functional MRI study. Neuroimage. 2007;35:488–500

  • Hoptman MJ, Zuo XN, Butler PD, Javitt DC, D’Angelo D, Mauro CJ, et al. Amplitude of low-frequency oscillations in schizophrenia: a resting state fMRI study. Schizophr Res. 2010;117:13–20 Full-Text PDF (318 KB)

  • Horovitz SG, Fukunaga M, de Zwart JA, van Gelderen P, Fulton SC, Balkin TJ, et al. Low frequency BOLD fluctuations during resting wakefulness and light sleep: a simultaneous EEG-fMRI study. Hum Brain Mapp. 2008;29:671–682

  • Huber R, Treyer V, Borbély AA, Schuderer J, Gottselig JM, Landolt HP, et al. Electromagnetic fields, such as those from mobile phones, alter regional cerebral blood flow and sleep and waking EEG. J Sleep Res. 2002;11:289–295

  • ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) . Guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields (up to 300GHz). Health Phys. 1998;74:494–522

  • IEEE Standard 1528. IEEE recommended practice for determining the peak spatial-average specific absorption rate (SAR) in the human head from wireless communications devices: measurement techniques. NJ, USA: Piscataway; 2003.

  • Kainz W, Christ A, Kellom T, Seidman S, Nikoloski N, Beard B, et al. Dosimetric comparison of the specific anthropomorphic mannequin (SAM) to 14 anatomical head models using a novel definition for the mobile phone positioning. Phys Med Biol. 2005;50:3423–3445

  • Kleinlogel H, Dierks Th, Koenig Th, Lehmann H, Minder A, Berz R. Effects of weak mobile phone – electromagnetic fields (GSM, UMTS) on event related potentials and cognitive functions. Bioelectromagnetics. 2008;29:488–497

  • Kwon MS, Hamalainen H. Effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields: critical evaluation of behavioral and neurophysiological studies. Bioelectromagnetics. 2011;32:253–272

  • Laufs H, Krakow K, Sterzer P, Eger E, Beyerle A, Salek-Haddadi A, et al. Electroencephalographic signatures of attentional and cognitive default modes in spontaneous brain activity fluctuations at rest. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2003;100:11053–11058

  • Ledberg A, Akerman S, Roland PE. Estimation of the probabilities of 3D clusters in functional brain images. Neuroimage. 1998;8:113–128

  • Lim SH, Dinner DS, Pillay PK, Lüders H, Morris HH, Klem G, et al. Functional anatomy of the human supplementary sensorimotor area: results of extraoperative electrical stimulation. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol. 1994;91:179–193 Full-Text PDF (1358 KB)

  • Logothetis NK, Wandell BA. Interpreting the BOLD signal. Annu Rev Physiol. 2004;66:735–769

  • Lu HB, Zuo YT, Gu H, Waltz JA, Zhan W, Scholl CA, et al. Synchronized delta oscillations correlate with the resting-state functional MRI signal. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104:18265–18269

  • Mao Y, Bian Q, Wang ZQ. A FDTD system-SEMF. No. 0287104, Registration of software copyright, China, 2011.

  • Margulies DS, Bottger J, Long XY, Lv YT, Kelly C, Schafer A, et al. Resting developments: a review of fMRI post-processing methodologies for spontaneous brain activity. Magn Reson Mater Phys. 2010;23:289–307

  • Mechelli A, Price CJ, Friston KJ. Nonlinear coupling between evoked rCBF and BOLD signals: a simulation study of hemodynamic responses. Neuroimage. 2001;14:862–872

  • Murphy K, Birn RM, Bandettini PA. Resting-state fMRI confounds and cleanup. Neuroimage. 2013;80:349–359

  • Nowinski WL, Chua BC, Marchenko Y, Puspitsari F, Volkau I, Knopp MV. Three-dimensional reference and stereotactic atlas of human cerebrovasculature from 7 Tesla. Neuroimage. 2011;55:986–998

  • Parkvall S, Furuska RA, Dahlman E. Evolution of LTE toward IMT-advanced. IEEE Comm Mag. 2011;49:84–91

  • Patrick K, Griswold WG, Raab F, Intille SS. Health and the mobile phone. Am J Prev Med. 2008;35:177–181 Full-Text PDF (76 KB)

  • Raichle ME, MacLeod AM, Snyder AZ, Powers WJ, Gusnard DA, Shulman GL. A default mode of brain function. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2001;98:676–682

  • Siegel B, Shah P, Bowyer S, Seidman M. Hemispheric dominance and cell phone use. ARO Abstracts. 2012;35:112–113

  • Taflove A, Hagness SC. Computational electrodynamics: the finite-difference time-domain method. 3rd ed.. Norwood MA: Artech House; 2005;

  • Talati A, Hirsch J. Functional specialization within the medial frontal gyrus for perceptual go/no-go decisions based on “what”, “when”, and “where” related information: an fMRI study. J Cogn Neurosci. 2005;17:981–993

  • Valentini E, Curcio G, Moroni F, Ferrara M, De Gennaro L, Bertini M. Neurophysiological effects of mobile electromagnetic fields on humans: a comprehensive review. Bioelectromagnetics. 2007;28:415–432

  • Van Dijk KR, Hedden T, Venkataraman A, Evans K, Lazar S, Buckner R. Intrinsic functional connectivity as a tool for human connectomics: theory, properties, and optimization. J Neurophysiol. 2010;103:297–321

  • Vecchio F, Babiloni C, Ferreri F, Curcio G, Fini R, Del Percio C, et al. Mobile phone emission modulates interhemispheric functional coupling of EEG alpha rhythms. Eur J Neurosci. 2007;25:1908–1913

  • Volkow ND, Tomasi D, Wang GJ, Vaska P, Fowler JS, Telang F, et al. Effects of cell phone radiofrequency signal exposure on brain glucose metabolism. JAMA. 2011;305:808–813

  • Wu TN, Tan LW, Shao Q, Zhang C, Zhao C, Li Y, et al. Chinese adult anatomical models and the application in evaluation of wideband RF EMF exposure. Phys Med Biol. 2011;56:2075–2089

  • Wu TN, Lv B, Chen ZY. Dosimetric studies involving in the experiments for the evaluation of the brain activation by LTE exposure. In: Proceedings of international symposium on electromagnetic compatibility (EMC EUROPE), Rome, Italy: IEEE; 2012.

  • Wu TN, Shao Q, Yang L. Simplied segmented human models for whole body and localized SAR evaluation of 20MHz–6GHz electromagnetic field exposures. Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2012;153:266–272

  • Wu TN, Tan LW, Shao Q, Li Y, Yang L, Zhao C, et al. Slice-based supine to standing postured deformation for Chinese anatomical models and the dosimetric results by wide band frequency electromagnetic field exposure: morphing. Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2013;154:26–30

  • Wu TN, Tan LW, Shao Q, Li Y, Yang L, Zhao C, et al. Slice-based supine to standing postured deformation for Chinese anatomical models and the dosimetric results by wide band frequency electromagnetic field exposure: simulation. Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2013;154:31–36

  • Yan CG, Zang YF. DPARSF: a MATLAB toolbox for “pipeline” data analysis of resting-state fMRI. Front Syst Neurosci. 2010;4:13

  • Zang YF, He Y, Zhu CZ, Cao QJ, Sui MQ, Liang M, et al. Altered baseline brain activity in children with ADHD revealed by resting-state functional MRI. Brain Dev. 2007;29:83–91 Full-Text PDF (450 KB)

  • Zou QH, Zhu CZ, Yang YH, Zuo XN, Long XY, Cao QJ, et al. An improved approach to detection of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) for resting-state fMRI: fractional ALFF. J Neurosci Meth. 2008;172:137–141

  • Zuo XN, Martino AD, Kelly C, Shehzad ZE, Gee DG, Klein DF, et al. The oscillating brain: complex and reliable. Neuroimage. 2010;49:1432–1445

  • Zuo XN, Xu T, Jiang LL, Yang Z, Cao XY, He Y, et al. Toward reliable characterization of functional homogeneity in the human brain: preprocessing, scan duration, imaging resolution and computational space. Neuroimage. 2013;65:374–386

Tags: Off Topic