Cellphone calls alter brain activity: Study

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Cellphone calls alter brain activity: Study

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Spending 50 minutes with a cellphone plastered to your ear is enough to change brain cell activity in the part of the brain closest to the antenna.

23 February,2011 07:32 am

It is still not sure whether it causes harm or not, the scientists at the National Institutes of Health said on Tuesday, adding that the study will likely not settle recurring concerns of a link between cellphones and brain cancer. The study was meant to examine how the brain reacts to electromagnetic fields caused by wireless phone signals.The scientist that said she was surprised that the weak electromagnetic radiation from cellphones could affect brain activity, but she said the findings do not shed any light on whether cellphones cause cancer. Use of the devices has increased dramatically since they were introduced in the early-to-mid 1980s, with about 5 billion mobile phones now in use worldwide. Some studies have linked cellphone exposure to an increased risk of brain cancers, but a large study by the World Health Organization was inconclusive.Scientists team studied 47 people who had brain scans while a cellphone was turned on for 50 minutes and another while the phone was turned off. While there was no overall change in brain metabolism, they found a 7 percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cellphone antenna when the phone was on.