Abstract

ACUTE EFFECT OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION EMITTED FROM MOBILE PHONE ON COGNITIVE EVOKED POTENTIAL P300 IN ADULT MALES – PRELIMINARY STUDY.

Dr. K. Singh MD.*

ABSTRACT

Cognitive evoked potential P300 has been used as an index of information and psychological processing in normal and various cognition impaired conditions. The present study was carried out to examine the effect of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) emitted from mobile phone on central nervous system processing and subjective appraisal by recording of cerebral evoked potential, i.e., P300 in 15 healthy male subjects before and after exposure (6.8± 2.3 min) to mobile phone (GSM type, Samsung model GT-N7100) in mobile phone users by recording of standard auditory “odd ball” paradigm involving simple discrimination task of concentrating on infrequent (target) stimulus and ignoring the frequent (non target) stimulus. Evoked response trial of discriminating target stimuli out of 300 presented (20% target and 80% non- target randomly) were replicated and analyzed by computer. There was significant increase in amplitude of evoked potential P300 without any effect on latency of potential, suggesting change in cognitive function by electromagnetic radiation emitted from mobile phone.

Keywords: Cognitive evoked potential. P300. Mobile phone. Electromagnetic radiation.