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Health Aspects of Mobile Communication: Risks to the Central Nervous System

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Electricity and Magnetism in Biology and Medicine

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Abstract

The wide and growing use of mobile communication has raised concerns about adverse interactions of electromagnetic radiation with the human organism and, in particular, the brain. Due to the close proximity of the mobile telephone device to the head, the brain is exposed to relatively high specific absorption rates (SAR), compared with the rest of the body. Numerical measurements during normal operation of GSM communication devices in the 900 MHz range have shown that, averaged over any 10 g of tissue, a maximum spatial SAR of 0.525 W/kg is reached in the brain1, and that the peak SAR may increase up to 0.75W/kg for devices operating in the 1.8 GHZ range2. These values are not too far away from the 1–4W/kg threshold at which body temperature begins to rise3, and there is ample evidence of biological effects due to heat stress. It is, therefore, conceiveable that some of the here reported effects are, in fact, due to spurious temperature changes.

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  1. Department of Experimental Neurology, Max-Planck-Institute for Neurological Research, Gleueler Str. 50, D-50931, Cologne, Germany

    Konstantin-Alexander Hossmann & Dirk Matthias Hermann

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  1. Konstantin-Alexander Hossmann
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  2. Dirk Matthias Hermann
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  1. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Ferdinando Bersani

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Hossmann, KA., Hermann, D.M. (1999). Health Aspects of Mobile Communication: Risks to the Central Nervous System. In: Bersani, F. (eds) Electricity and Magnetism in Biology and Medicine. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4867-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4867-6_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7208-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-4867-6

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