Medical/biological study (experimental study)

Effects of Wi-Fi signals on the P300 component of event-related potentials during an auditory Hayling task med./bio.

By: Papageorgiou CC, Hountala CD, Maganioti AE, Kyprianou MA, Rabavilas AD, Papadimitriou GN, Capsalis CN

Published in: J Integr Neurosci 2011; 10 (2): 189-202

Aim of study (acc. to author)

To study whether the presence of WiFi signals affects the patterns of P300 event-related potential component elicited during a linguistic test.

Background/further details

15 male and 15 female subjects, matched for age and education level, participated and they performed the tasks twice (with and without exposure) with an interval of two weeks between the measurements (random order).
The test consisted of three different conditions: 1) response initiation: participants completed auditory presented sentences with a word clearly suggested by the context, 2) response inhibition: participants produced a word that made no sense in the context of an auditory-presented sentence from which the last word was missing, 3) baseline condition: subjects were asked to repeat the last word of the presented sentence.

Endpoint

effects on the neurological system: brain activity (P300 event-related potential during a working memory task)

Exposure

- 2.45 GHz
- 2.45 GHz
- microwaves
- W-LAN/WiFi

Exposure	Parameters
Exposure 1: 2.45 GHz Exposure duration: not specified in the article	power: 100 mW (20 dBm) electric field strength: 0.49 V/m (at the subject's head)

Exposure 1

Main characteristics

Frequency	2.45 GHz
Type	electromagnetic field
Exposure duration	not specified in the article

Exposure setup

Exposure source	Wi-Fi access point, dual dipole antenna
Distance between exposed object and exposure source	1.5 m
Chamber	Faraday room
Sham exposure	A sham exposure was conducted.

Parameters

Measurand	Value	Type	Method	Mass	Remarks
power	100 mW	-	-	-	20 dBm
electric field strength	0.49 V/m	-	-	-	at the subject's head

Exposed system:

human
whole body

Methods Endpoint/measurement parameters/methodology

effects on the neurological system: P300 event-related potential during a working memory task (modified Hayling Sentence Completion test; EEG)

Investigated system:

investigation on living organism

Investigated organ system:

brain/CNS

Time of investigation:

during exposure

Main outcome of study (acc. to author)

P300 event-related potential amplitudes at 18 EEG electrodes were significantly lower in the "response inhibition" condition (second condition) than in the "response initiation" and "baseline" conditions. Within the "response inhibition" condition there was also a significant gender-exposure correlation effect manifested at 15 leads by decreased P300 event-related potential amplitudes of males and by increased amplitudes of females under exposure to of electromagnetic fields.
In conclusion, the data suggest that WiFi exposure may induce gender-related alterations in neural activity associated with the amount of attentional resources (P300 amplitude is thought to be sensitive to the amount of attentional resources engaged during the execution of a cognitive task).

Study character:

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

Study funded by

not stated/no funding

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