Static Magnetic Field Stimulation over Parietal Cortex Enhances Somatosensory Detection in Humans.
Carrasco-López C, Soto-León V, Céspedes V, Profice P, Strange BA, Foffani G, Oliviero A. · 2017
View Original AbstractStatic magnetic fields directly altered human brain wave patterns and enhanced sensory perception, proving magnetic exposure can change nervous system function.
Plain English Summary
Researchers used powerful static magnetic fields placed over participants' heads to stimulate brain areas involved in touch sensation. They found that this magnetic stimulation enhanced people's ability to detect weak touch sensations by increasing specific brain wave patterns called alpha oscillations. This suggests that magnetic fields can directly influence how our brains process sensory information.
Why This Matters
This study provides direct evidence that magnetic fields can alter brain function and sensory perception in humans. The researchers used transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (essentially placing powerful magnets near the skull) to demonstrate that magnetic exposure changes brain wave patterns and improves touch detection. What makes this particularly significant is that it shows magnetic fields don't just affect brain cells in laboratory dishes - they can measurably change how the living human brain processes information. While this was a controlled research setting using intentionally strong magnetic fields, it raises important questions about how the weaker but chronic magnetic field exposures from our electronic devices might be subtly influencing our nervous system function over time.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
Here we use noninvasive brain stimulation to artificially modulate cortical network dynamics in the context of neurophysiological and behavioral recordings.
We demonstrate that transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) over the somatosensory par...
Critically, we next show that parietal tSMS enhances the detection of near-threshold somatosensory s...
Our data therefore provide causal evidence that somatosensory perception depends on parietal alpha activity.
Show BibTeX
@article{c_2017_static_magnetic_field_stimulation_1728,
author = {Carrasco-López C and Soto-León V and Céspedes V and Profice P and Strange BA and Foffani G and Oliviero A.},
title = {Static Magnetic Field Stimulation over Parietal Cortex Enhances Somatosensory Detection in Humans.},
year = {2017},
url = {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6596712/},
}