Effect of microwave radiation on EEG coherence

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in the EEG coherence produced by microwave exposure for healthy and depressive persons. The experiments were carried out on two groups of volunteers: a group of healthy subjects and a group of patients with major depressive disorder. Each group consisted of 18 female subjects. During 30 min experiment volunteers were exposed to 450 MHz microwave radiation modulated at 1000 Hz. The field density at the scalp was 1,6 mW/cm2. The coherence values were calculated for FP1-T3 - FP2-T4, T3-P3 - T4-P4 and P3-O1 - P4-O2 channel pairs. The EEG theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (8-13 Hz), beta1 (13-20 Hz) and beta2 (20-40 Hz) frequency bands were selected for analysis. Statistical analysis of calculated parameter for individuals with post-host Bonferroni correction was applied. The experiments demonstrated no significant changes in the EEG coherence between exposed and not exposed conditions for healthy as well as depressive group. However, the results showed significant changes produced by exposure in the EEG coherence for a part of subjects. In the healthy group: 1) an increase occurred in the EEG coherence in theta and alpha rhythms, and the differences were statistically significant over the frontal and temporal regions in theta (3 subjects, 16 %) and alpha (2 subjects, 11 %) rhythms, 2) decrease in alpha (2 subjects, 11%) rhythm was statistically significant over the parietal and occipital regions. In the group of patients with major depressive disorder microwave exposure caused statistically significant changes in the EEG coherence in beta2 rhythm (2 subjects, 11 %) over frontal and temporal regions and in alpha (3 subjects, 16 %) over temporal and parietal regions. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.