Medical/biological study (experimental study)

No effects of mobile phone use on cortical auditory change-detection in children: an ERP study med./bio.

By: Kwon MS, Huotilainen M, Shestakova A, Kujala T, Näätänen R, Hämäläinen H

Published in: Bioelectromagnetics 2010; 31 (3): 191-199

Aim of study (acc. to author)

To study whether there are any short-term electromagnetic field effects on the auditory sensory memory of children by comparing the mismatch negativity responses in different electromagnetic field conditions.

Background/further details

17 healthy children (13 females, aged 11-12 years) participated. A recently developed multi-feature paradigm was used that allows to determine the neural change-detection profile consisting of several different types of acoustic changes.

Endpoint

effects on the neurological system: event-related potentials/mismatch negativity
cognitive/behavioral endpoints: auditory sensory memory of children

Exposure

- mobile communications
- mobile phone
- GSM

Exposure	Parameters
Exposure 1: 902 MHz Modulation type: pulsed Exposure duration: 6 min blocks, 3 blocks on one ear - then 3 blocks on the other ear; each three block sequence consisted of one block EMF off, 2 blocks EMF on	power: 0.25 W mean SAR: 1.14 W/kg average over mass (1 g) SAR: 0.82 W/kg average over mass (10 g) SAR: 1.21 W/kg peak value

Exposure 1

Main characteristics

Frequency	902 MHz
Type	electromagnetic field
Exposure duration	6 min blocks, 3 blocks on one ear - then 3 blocks on the other ear; each three block sequence consisted of one block EMF off, 2 blocks EMF on

Modulation

Modulation type	pulsed
Pulse width	0.58 µs
Repetition frequency	217 Hz

Exposure setup

Exposure source	cellular phone
Setup	mobile phone placed on the ear, parallel to the medial plane, attached to a headset
Sham exposure	A sham exposure was conducted.

Parameters

Measurand	Value	Type	Method	Mass	Remarks
power	0.25 W	mean	measured	-	-
SAR	1.14 W/kg	average over mass	measured	1 g	-
SAR	0.82 W/kg	average over mass	measured	10 g	-
SAR	1.21 W/kg	peak value	measured	-	-

Exposed system:

human
partial body: left and right side of the head (temporal area)

Methods Endpoint/measurement parameters/methodology

effects on the neurological system: EEG: event-related potentials (mismatch negativity (amplitude, latency); N200 event-related potential, P100 event-related potential, P3a event-related potential (elicited by deviant or novel sounds to study involuntary attention shifting))
cognitive/behavioral endpoints: auditory sensory memory of children (measured by mismatch negativity, see "effects on the neurological system")
effects on auditory system (perceptual accuracy for several sound-feature dimensions (see "effects on the neurological system")); EOG

Investigated system:

investigation on living organism

Investigated organ system:

Time of investigation:

before exposure
during exposure
after exposure

Main outcome of study (acc. to author)

The data showed that the electromagnetic field emitted by a GSM mobile phone does not affect the cognitive processes, reflected by the responses to the standard tone (P100 event-related potential, N200 event-related potential, and the change-specific mismatch negativity and P3a responses.
Furthermore, the recently developed multi-feature paradigm was shown to be well suited for studies of perception accuracy and sensory memory in children. However, it should be noted that the present study only had sufficient statistical power to detect a large effect size.

Study character:

medical/biological study
experimental study
full/main study
blind study

Study funded by

Academy of Finland
Tekes (National Technology Agency), Finland
University of Helsinki, Finland

Trunk A et al. (2015): Effects of concurrent caffeine and mobile phone exposure on local target probability processing in the human brain
Roggeveen S et al. (2015): Does the brain detect 3G mobile phone radiation peaks? An explorative in-depth analysis of an experimental study
Ghosn R et al. (2015): Radiofrequency signal affects alpha band in resting electroencephalogram
Mandala M et al. (2014): Effect of Bluetooth headset and mobile phone electromagnetic fields on the human auditory nerve
Panda NK et al. (2011): Auditory changes in mobile users: is evidence forthcoming?
Colletti V et al. (2011): Intraoperative observation of changes in cochlear nerve action potentials during exposure to electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones
Panda NK et al. (2010): Audiologic disturbances in long-term mobile phone users
Kwon MS et al. (2009): Preattentive auditory information processing under exposure to the 902 MHz GSM mobile phone electromagnetic field: a mismatch negativity (MMN) study
Krause CM et al. (2007): Effects of pulsed and continuous wave 902 MHz mobile phone exposure on brain oscillatory activity during cognitive processing
Maby E et al. (2006): Scalp localization of human auditory cortical activity modified by GSM electromagnetic fields
Krause CM et al. (2006): Mobile phone effects on children's event-related oscillatory EEG during an auditory memory task
Hamblin DL et al. (2006): The sensitivity of human event-related potentials and reaction time to mobile phone emitted electromagnetic fields
Krause CM et al. (2004): Effects of electromagnetic field emitted by cellular phones on the EEG during an auditory memory task: a double blind replication study
Arai N et al. (2003): Thirty minutes mobile phone use has no short-term adverse effects on central auditory pathways
Cook CM et al. (2002): Human electrophysiological and cognitive effects of exposure to ELF magnetic and ELF modulated RF and microwave fields: a review of recent studies
Krause CM et al. (2000): Effects of electromagnetic field emitted by cellular phones on the EEG during a memory task
Krause CM et al. (2000): Effects of electromagnetic fields emitted by cellular phones on the electroencephalogram during a visual working memory task
Freude G et al. (1998): Effects of microwaves emitted by cellular phones on human slow brain potentials