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Brain & Nervous System

No effects of mobile phone use on cortical auditory change-detection in children: an ERP study

No Effects Found

Kwon MS, Huotilainen M, Shestakova A, Kujala T, Näätänen R, Hämäläinen H. · 2010

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A short exposure to mobile phone EMF had no statistically significant effects on neural change-detection in children.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Auditory event-related potentials including P1, N2, mismatch negativity, and P3a were recorded from 17 children aged 11–12 years using the multi-feature paradigm. During recording, an ordinary GSM mobile phone emitting 902 MHz pulsed at 217 Hz was placed on the ear over the left or right temporal area with SAR1g = 1.14 W/kg and SAR10g = 0.82 W/kg. The short exposure of two 6 min blocks per side had no statistically significant effects on the neural change-detection profile measured with MMN. The study only had sufficient statistical power to detect a large effect size.

Why This Matters

The researchers investigated the effect of mobile phone use on auditory sensory memory in children. The multi-feature paradigm allows determination of the neural change-detection profile consisting of several different types of acoustic changes. The EMF exposure was administered in a single-blind manner with the field either on or off. The multi-feature paradigm was shown to be well suited for studies of perception accuracy and sensory memory in children.

Exposure Details

SAR
1.14,0.82 and 1.21 W/kg
Source/Device
902 MHz

Exposure Context

This study used 1.14,0.82 and 1.21 W/kg for SAR (device absorption):

Building Biology guidelines are practitioner-based limits from real-world assessments. BioInitiative Report recommendations are based on peer-reviewed science. Check Your Exposure to compare your own measurements.

Where This Falls on the Concern Scale

Study Exposure Level in ContextStudy Exposure Level in ContextThis study: 1.14,0.82 and 1.21 W/kgExtreme Concern - 0.1 W/kgFCC Limit - 1.6 W/kgEffects observed in the Extreme Concern range (Building Biology)FCC limit is 2 times higher than this level
A logarithmic frequency spectrum from 10 Hz to 100 GHz showing where this study's 902 MHz exposure sits relative to common EMF sources.Where This Frequency Sits on the EMF SpectrumELFVLFLF / MFHF / VHFUHFSHFmm10 Hz100 GHzThis study: 902 MHzPower lines50/60 Hz5G mm28 GHzLogarithmic scale

Study Details

We investigated the effect of mobile phone use on the auditory sensory memory in children.

Auditory event‐related potentials (ERPs), P1, N2, mismatch negativity (MMN), and P3a, were recorded ...

We found that a short exposure (two 6 min blocks for each side) to mobile phone EMF has no statistic...

However, it should be noted that the present study only had sufficient statistical power to detect a large effect size.

Cite This Study
Kwon MS, Huotilainen M, Shestakova A, Kujala T, Näätänen R, Hämäläinen H. (2010). No effects of mobile phone use on cortical auditory change-detection in children: an ERP study Bioelectromagnetics. 31(3):191-199, 2010b.
Show BibTeX
@article{ms_2010_no_effects_of_mobile_2778,
  author = {Kwon MS and Huotilainen M and Shestakova A and Kujala T and Näätänen R and Hämäläinen H. },
  title = {No effects of mobile phone use on cortical auditory change-detection in children: an ERP study},
  year = {2010},
  doi = {10.1002/bem.20546},
  url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bem.20546},
}
DOI: 10.1002/bem.20546

Cited By (30 papers)

Quick Questions About This Study

During recording, an ordinary GSM mobile phone emitting 902 MHz pulsed at 217 Hz was placed on the ear over the left or right temporal area with SAR1g = 1.14 W/kg and SAR10g = 0.82 W/kg. The EMF was either on or off in a single-blind manner.
A short exposure to mobile phone EMF had no statistically significant effects on the neural change-detection profile measured with MMN. The multi-feature paradigm was shown to be well suited for studies of perception accuracy and sensory memory in children.
Auditory event-related potentials were recorded from 17 children aged 11–12 years.
The study only had sufficient statistical power to detect a large effect size.
The recently developed multi-feature paradigm was used to record auditory event-related potentials. This paradigm allows determination of the neural change-detection profile consisting of several different types of acoustic changes.