OBJECTIVE

To investigate whether exposure to pulsed high-frequency electromagnetic field (pulsed EMF) emitted by a mobile phone has short-term effects on saccade performances.

METHODS

A double blind, counterbalanced crossover design was employed. In 10 normal subjects, we studied the performance of visually guided saccade (VGS), gap saccade (GAP), and memory guided saccade (MGS) tasks before and after exposure to EMF emitted by a mobile phone for thirty minutes or sham exposure. We also implemented a hand reaction time (RT) task in response to a visual signal.

RESULTS

With the exception of VGS and MGS latencies, the parameters of VGS, GAP and MGS tasks were unchanged before and after real or sham EMF exposure. In addition, the latencies of VGS and MGS did not change differently after real and sham exposure. The hand RT shortened with the repetition of trials, but again this trend was of similar magnitude for real and sham exposures.

CONCLUSIONS

Thirty minutes of mobile phone exposure has no significant short-term effect on saccade performances.

SIGNIFICANCE

This is the first study to investigate saccade performance in relation to mobile phone exposure. No significant effect of mobile phone use was demonstrated on the performance of various saccade tasks, suggesting that the cortical processing for saccades and attention is not affected by exposure to EMF emitted by a mobile phone.