The effect of Wi-Fi electromagnetic waves in unimodal and multimodal object recognition tasks in male rats
Hassanshahi A, Shafeie SA, Fatemi I, Hassanshahi E, Allahtavakoli M, Shabani M, Roohbakhsh A, Shamsizadeh A · 2017
View Original AbstractChronic Wi-Fi exposure at typical home router frequencies impaired rats' ability to recognize objects and form memories.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed male rats to Wi-Fi radiation (2.4 GHz) for 12 hours daily over 30 days and tested their ability to recognize and remember objects using different senses. The Wi-Fi-exposed rats showed significant impairment in object recognition tasks, failing to distinguish between familiar and new objects whether using touch, vision, or combined senses. This suggests that chronic Wi-Fi exposure may interfere with how the brain processes and integrates sensory information.
Why This Matters
This study adds to growing concerns about Wi-Fi's impact on cognitive function, particularly memory and learning processes. The 2.4 GHz frequency used here is identical to what your home Wi-Fi router emits, making these findings directly relevant to daily exposure. What's particularly striking is that the rats couldn't perform basic recognition tasks that are fundamental to learning and navigation. The fact that both individual senses and cross-modal integration were affected suggests Wi-Fi may disrupt core brain processing mechanisms. While this is animal research, the hippocampal changes observed mirror those seen in other EMF studies examining memory formation. The reality is that we're conducting a massive experiment on ourselves and our children with ubiquitous Wi-Fi exposure, and studies like this suggest the cognitive costs may be higher than we realize.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study. The study examined exposure from: 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Duration: 12 hr/day. 30 days
Study Details
Considering the recent reports about some hazardous effects of Wi-Fi signals on the nervous system, this study aimed to investigate the effect of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radiation on multisensory integration in rats.
This experimental study was done on 80 male Wistar rats that were allocated into exposure and sham g...
Results demonstrated that rats in Wi-Fi exposure groups could not discriminate significantly between...
In conclusion, results of this study showed that chronic exposure to Wi-Fi electromagnetic waves might impair both unimodal and cross-modal encoding of information.
Show BibTeX
@article{a_2017_the_effect_of_wifi_1496,
author = {Hassanshahi A and Shafeie SA and Fatemi I and Hassanshahi E and Allahtavakoli M and Shabani M and Roohbakhsh A and Shamsizadeh A},
title = {The effect of Wi-Fi electromagnetic waves in unimodal and multimodal object recognition tasks in male rats},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1007/s10072-017-2920-y},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10072-017-2920-y},
}