AFaR, Department of Neuroscience, Hosp. Fatebenefratelli, Isola Tiberina, Rome, Italy.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2012 May;84(2):164-71. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.02.002. Epub 2012 Feb 16.
It has been reported that GSM electromagnetic fields (GSM-EMFs) of mobile phones modulate - after a prolonged exposure - inter-hemispheric synchronization of temporal and frontal resting electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythms in normal young and elderly subjects (Vecchio et al., 2007, 2010). Here we tested the hypothesis that this can be even more evident in epileptic patients, who typically suffer from abnormal mechanisms governing synchronization of rhythmic firing of cortical neurons. Eyes-closed resting EEG data were recorded in ten patients affected by focal epilepsy in real and sham exposure conditions. These data were compared with those obtained from 15 age-matched normal subjects of the previous reference studies. The GSM device was turned on (45 min) in the "GSM" condition and was turned off (45 min) in the other condition ("sham"). The mobile phone was always positioned on the left side in both patients and control subjects. Spectral coherence evaluated the inter-hemispheric synchronization of EEG rhythms at the following frequency bands: delta (about 2-4 Hz), theta (about 4-6 Hz), alpha1 (about 6-8 Hz), alpha2 (about 8-10 Hz), and alpha3 (about 10-12 Hz). The effects on the patients were investigated comparing the inter-hemispheric EEG coherence in the epileptic patients with the control group of subjects evaluated in the previous reference studies. Compared with the control subjects, epileptic patients showed a statistically significant higher inter-hemispheric coherence of temporal and frontal alpha rhythms (about 8-12 Hz) in the GSM than "Sham" condition. These results suggest that GSM-EMFs of mobile phone may affect inter-hemispheric synchronization of the dominant (alpha) EEG rhythms in epileptic patients. If confirmed by future studies on a larger group of epilepsy patients, the modulation of the inter-hemispheric alpha coherence due to the GSM-EMFs could have clinical implications and be related to changes in cognitive-motor function.
已有报道称，移动电话的全球移动通信系统（GSM）电磁场（GSM-EMF）在长时间暴露后会调节正常年轻和老年受试者的颞叶和额部静息脑电图（EEG）节律的半球间同步[1,2]。在这里，我们测试了这样一个假设，即在通常患有皮质神经元节律性放电同步异常机制的癫痫患者中，这种情况可能更为明显。在真实和假暴露条件下，记录了十名局灶性癫痫患者的闭眼静息 EEG 数据。将这些数据与之前参考研究中获得的 15 名年龄匹配的正常受试者的数据进行了比较。在“GSM”条件下打开（45 分钟）GSM 设备，在另一种条件（“假”）下关闭（45 分钟）。在两种情况下，移动电话总是放在患者和对照组受试者的左侧。频谱相干性评估了 EEG 节律的半球间同步，其频率范围为：delta（约 2-4 Hz）、theta（约 4-6 Hz）、alpha1（约 6-8 Hz）、alpha2（约 8-10 Hz）和 alpha3（约 10-12 Hz）。通过将癫痫患者的半球间 EEG 相干性与之前参考研究中评估的对照组受试者进行比较，研究了对患者的影响。与对照组相比，癫痫患者在 GSM 条件下的颞叶和额部 alpha 节律（约 8-12 Hz）的半球间相干性明显更高。这些结果表明，移动电话的 GSM-EMF 可能会影响癫痫患者主导（alpha）EEG 节律的半球间同步。如果未来对更大组的癫痫患者进行研究得到证实，由于 GSM-EMF 引起的半球间 alpha 相干性的调制可能具有临床意义，并与认知-运动功能的变化有关。
