Cell Phone Brain Scans

In the study, 47 healthy subjects, nearly evenly split between men and women, were outfitted with a cell phone on each ear. Glucose metabolism was measured using PET scans, a technique first developed at BNL in the 1970s. Each participant was scanned twice, once when the right-hand phone was turned on and once when both phones were off (the phones were kept muted and the subjects were unaware when one of the phones was active). The phone exposures lasted 50 minutes and the PET scans were started five minutes after the phone was turned off. They reflect the average brain activity over a 30-minute period.

Although glucose metabolism was not altered for the brain as a whole, there were significant effects in those locations closest to the phone, the right orbitofrontal cortex (see the arrowhead in the figure on the left below) and parts of the temporal lobe. These areas of the brain have been shown to have the highest RF radiation exposures when using a mobile phone. As Volkow explains in the paper: The "regions expected to have the greatest absorption of RF-EMFs from the cell phone exposure were the ones that showed the larger increases in glucose metabolism."