Monday, June 26, 2006

Cell Phones Excite Brain Cells

Hmm this is an interesting study about how cell phones affect your brain.

Dr. Paolo Rossini of Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan and colleagues used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS to check brain function while people used these phones.

They had 15 young male volunteers use a GSM 900 cell phone for 45 minutes. In 12 of the 15, the cells in the motor cortex adjacent to the cell phone showed excitability during phone use but returned to normal within an hour.

The cortex is the outside layer of the brain and the motor cortex is known as the "excitable area" because magnetic stimulation has been shown to cause a muscle twitch.

Hmm I wonder what effects this excitability has? I wonder if you excite the left brain you will become more creative or the right brain gets excited you can think better. So depending on what side you use the cell phone on you get either a boost of creativity or cognition. Or maybe that excitability is what causes brain cancer in some cell phone users. I think more study is in order to see if these things are safe over the long haul.

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