Cell Phone Use Tied To Changes In Brain Activity

Takichi writes "The New York Times is reporting on research linking cell phone use and increased metabolism, with high statistical significance, in the areas of the brain close to the antenna. The study was led by Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and is published (abstract) in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The impact, good or bad, of the increased stimulation is speculative, but this research shows there is a direct relationship between cell phone signals and the brain that warrants further study."

Comments

Re:Unsure

[ColdWetDog]

There is a real disconnect between the single picture and the article text. The picture posted in the NYT shows increased diffused uptake, perhaps a predominance on the right side (the side with the active cell phone) but it's anything but obvious. From all of the chatter surrounding the article, I hope to hell that the actual quantitative results are better founded and the picture just isn't very useful.

TFA claims that the study is high quality and if they can get reasonable results from 47 people, they had to see a substantive difference. Still and all, it's a relatively easy experiment to repeat and I assume that is in progress as we speak. I'd like to see some better controls (both left and right active, a determination of how repeatable the fMRI values are in a given person over a couple of hours just to name two off the top of my head).

As everyone has been taking great pains to note, this doesn't show anything but a putative effect of putting an active cell phone next to your head - it's neither good nor bad and it's not necessarily due to the radio emissions (that's an assumption).