[Effects of occupational microwave irradiation on heat shock protein 70 expressions in rat hippocampus.]
Gao XF,Pei LP, Chen CH, Yang XS, Zhang GB, Deng ZH, Yu ZP. · 2009
View Original AbstractMicrowave radiation triggered brain stress proteins in rats at high exposure levels, showing the brain recognizes this radiation as a biological threat.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed rats to high-level microwave radiation for 20 minutes and found increased production of heat shock protein 70 in the brain's hippocampus. This protein signals cellular stress, indicating microwave radiation triggers the brain's defense mechanisms against potential damage.
Why This Matters
This research provides important evidence that microwave radiation activates cellular stress responses in the brain, specifically in the hippocampus, which is crucial for memory and learning. The study used extremely high exposure levels (5-90 W/cm²) that far exceed typical consumer device emissions, but the key finding is that the brain recognizes microwave radiation as a biological stressor worthy of mounting a defense response. The activation of HSP70 is essentially the cellular equivalent of an alarm system going off. While the researchers frame this as a 'protective mechanism,' the reality is that chronic activation of stress response systems can become problematic over time. This adds to the growing body of evidence that microwave radiation produces measurable biological effects in neural tissue, contradicting claims that such radiation is biologically inert below thermal heating levels.
Exposure Details
- Power Density
- 5000, 90000 µW/m²
- Exposure Duration
- 20 minutes
Exposure Context
This study used 5000, 90000 µW/m² for radio frequency:
- 500,000Mx above the Building Biology guideline of 0.1 μW/m²
- 8,333.3Mx above the BioInitiative Report recommendation of 0.0006 μW/cm²
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 Details
To study the change of heat shock protein (HSP)70 expression after exposure to occupational microwave in rats hippocampus, and explore the role of HSP70 in the mechanism of bio-effect of microwave irradiation.
The animal model was established by whole body exposures in 90, 5 W/cm(2) microwave irradiation fiel...
The mRNA and protein expression of hsp70 in rat hippocampus increased after 90 W/cm(2) and 5 W/cm(2)...
Microwave irradiation can obviously induce the thermal effect and activate HSP70, and initiate the endogenous protective mechanism of central nervous system.
Show BibTeX
@article{xf_2009_effects_of_occupational_microwave_988,
author = {Gao XF andPei LP and Chen CH and Yang XS and Zhang GB and Deng ZH and Yu ZP.},
title = {[Effects of occupational microwave irradiation on heat shock protein 70 expressions in rat hippocampus.]},
year = {2009},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20137302/},
}