EMF Health-effects Research

Time-course of electromagnetic field effects on human performance and tympanic temperature.

Curcio G, Ferrara M, De Gennaro L, Cristiani R, D'Inzeo G, Bertini M.

Neuroreport. 15(1):161-164, 2004


The study aimed to investigate the time-course of electromagnetic field (EMF)-induced effects on human cognitive and behavioral performance and on tympanic temperature.

Subjects were randomly assigned to two groups, exposed to a 902.40 MHz EMF before the testing session, or to the same signal during the data collecting session.

Following a double-blind paradigm, subjects were tested on four performance tasks:

  • an acoustic simple-reaction time task,
  • a visual search task,
  • an arithmetic descending subtraction task and
  • an acoustic choice-reaction time task.

Moreover, tympanic temperature was collected five times during each session.

Results indicated an improvement of both simple- and choice-reaction times and an increase of local temperature on the exposed region under the active exposure. There was a clear time-course of the reaction time and temperature data, indicating that performance and physiological measures need a minimum of 25 min of EMF exposure to show appreciable changes.



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