Cellphone calls alter brain activity

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Cellphone calls alter brain activity

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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. But whether that causes any harm is not clear, scientists said, adding that the study will likely not settle recurring concerns of a link between cellphones and brain cancer.

23 February,2011 11:19 pm

Dr. Nora Volkow of the NIH, whose study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said, What we showed is glucose metabolism (a sign of brain activity) increases in the brain in people who were exposed to a cellphone in the area closet to the antenna.The study was meant to examine how the brain reacts to electromagnetic fields caused by wireless phone signals. Volkow said she was surprised that the weak electromagnetic radiation from cellphones could affect brain activity, but she said the findings don’t shed any light on whether cellphones cause cancer.Some studies have linked cellphone exposure to an increased risk of brain cancers, but a large study by the World Health Organization was inconclusive.