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.