Sep 3, 2007
Pulsed Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields: Dose-dependent Effects on Sleep, the Sleep EEG and Cognitive Performance
Sabine J. Regel, Gilberte Tinguely, Jürgen Schuderer, Martin Adam, Niels Kuster, Hans-Peter Landolt, and Peter Achermann, in Journal of Sleep Research, Volume 16, Issue 3, pp. 253–258, September 2007. Published online August 17, 2007
In this experiment, the heads of 15 healthy male subjects were unilaterally exposed to a pulse-modulated EMF (GSM handset like signal) for 30 min prior to sleep. Exposure levels with 10g-averaged peak spatial specific SARs of 0.2 W/kg, 5 W/kg, or sham were made in a double-blind, crossover design. Sleep architecture was not affected by EMF exposure. Analysis of the sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) revealed a dose-dependent increase of power in the spindle frequency range in non-REM sleep. The magnitude of the effect of the previous experiment (Huber et al, 2002) conducted at 1 W/kg was between the responses of the two doses. Reaction speed decelerated with increasing field intensity in the 1-back task, while accuracy in the CRT and N-back task were not affected in a dose-dependent manner.
In summary, this is the fourth independent experiment and the first dose-response experiment demonstrating effects of GSM-like exposures on the spindle frequencies in non-REM sleep EEG.
