Microwaves emitted by cellular telephones affect human slow brain potentials

Abstract

The influence of electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted by cellular telephones on preparatory slow brain potentials (SP) was studied in two experiments, about 6 months apart. In the first experiment, a significant decrease of SP was found during exposure to EMF in a complex visual monitoring task (VMT). This effect was replicated in the second experiment. In addition to the VMT, EMF effects on SP were analysed in two further, less demanding tasks: in a simple finger movement task to elicit a Bereitschaftspotential (BP) and in a two-stimulus task to elicit a contingent negative variation (CNV). In comparison to the VMT, no significant main EMF effects were found in BP and CNV tasks. The results accounted for a selective EMF effect on particular aspects of human information processing, but did not indicate any influence on human performance, well-being and health.