Effects of Single and Repeated Exposure to a 50-Hz 2-mT Electromagnetic Field on Primary Cultured Hippocampal Neurons.
Zeng Y, Shen Y , Hong L, Chen Y, Shi X, Zeng Q, Yu P. · 2017
View Original AbstractBrain cells showed increased oxidative stress from power-frequency magnetic fields at levels 10-200 times higher than typical home exposure.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed brain cells important for memory to power-line frequency magnetic fields for eight hours daily. The exposure reduced cell health and increased cellular damage from free radicals, suggesting household electrical fields may stress brain cells without causing severe damage.
Why This Matters
This study provides important insight into how power-frequency magnetic fields affect brain cells at the cellular level. The 2 milliTesla exposure level is significantly higher than typical household exposures (which range from 0.01 to 0.2 milliTesla), but it's within the range you might encounter very close to high-voltage power lines or certain electrical equipment. What's particularly noteworthy is that the researchers found oxidative stress without the more severe cellular damage markers like DNA breaks or cell death. This pattern suggests that ELF magnetic fields may cause biological stress through oxidative pathways rather than direct genetic damage. The reality is that oxidative stress, while less dramatic than DNA damage, can still contribute to cellular dysfunction over time and has been linked to various neurological conditions.
Exposure Details
- Magnetic Field
- 2 mG
- Source/Device
- 50-Hz
- Exposure Duration
- 8 h per day
Exposure Context
This study used 2 mG for magnetic fields:
- 100Kx above the Building Biology guideline of 0.2 mG
- 20Kx above the BioInitiative Report recommendation of 1 mG
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
we evaluated the biological effects of different patterns of ELF-MF exposure on primary cultured hippocampal neurons in terms of viability, apoptosis, genomic instability, and oxidative stress.
The results showed that repeated exposure to 50-Hz 2-mT ELF-MF for 8 h per day after different times...
Moreover, none of the repeated exposure patterns had significant effects on DNA damage, apoptosis, or autophagy, which suggested that ELF-MF exposure has no severe biological consequences in cultured hippocampal neurons.
Show BibTeX
@article{y_2017_effects_of_single_and_735,
author = {Zeng Y and Shen Y and Hong L and Chen Y and Shi X and Zeng Q and Yu P.},
title = {Effects of Single and Repeated Exposure to a 50-Hz 2-mT Electromagnetic Field on Primary Cultured Hippocampal Neurons.},
year = {2017},
url = {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5567517/},
}