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 AbstractWi-Fi radiation at everyday frequencies completely impaired rats' ability to recognize new objects, suggesting chronic exposure may disrupt basic brain processing.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed 80 male rats to Wi-Fi radiation (2.4 GHz) for 12 hours daily over 30 days, then tested their ability to recognize new versus familiar objects using sight, touch, and combined senses. The Wi-Fi-exposed rats lost their ability to distinguish between new and familiar objects in all tests, while also showing increased expression of certain brain receptors in the hippocampus (the brain's memory center). This suggests that chronic Wi-Fi exposure may impair how the brain processes and integrates sensory information.
Why This Matters
This study adds to growing evidence that Wi-Fi radiation can interfere with fundamental brain functions, specifically how we process and integrate information from different senses. The researchers used 2.4 GHz frequency - the same used by most home Wi-Fi routers, Bluetooth devices, and microwave ovens. What makes this research particularly concerning is that the rats completely lost their ability to recognize novelty across multiple sensory modalities, suggesting widespread cognitive impairment rather than isolated effects.
The reality is that we're surrounded by 2.4 GHz radiation daily from our wireless devices, often for far longer than the 12 hours used in this study. While we can't directly extrapolate animal studies to humans, the biological mechanisms involved - changes in brain receptor expression and impaired hippocampal function - are fundamental to how all mammalian brains work. This research reinforces the importance of reducing unnecessary Wi-Fi exposure, especially during sleep when the brain consolidates memories and repairs itself.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
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...
The expression of M1 receptors increased following Wi-Fi exposure. 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_2185,
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},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28332042/},
}