The Action of Pulse-Modulated GSM Radiation Increases Regional Changes in Brain Activity and c-Fos Expression in Cortical and Subcortical Areas in a Rat Model of Picrotoxin-Induced Seizure Proneness

The action of the pulse-modulated GSM radiofrequency of mobile phones has been suggested as a physical phenomenon that might have biological effects on the mammalian central nervous system. In the present study, GSM-exposed picrotoxin-pretreated rats showed differences in clinical and EEG signs, and in c-Fos expression in the brain, with respect to picrotoxin-treated rats exposed to an equivalent dose of unmodu-lated radiation. Neither radiation treatment caused tis-sue heating, so thermal effects can be ruled out. The most marked effects of GSM radiation on c-Fos expression in picrotoxin-treated rats were observed in limbic structures, olfactory cortex areas and subcortical areas, the dentate gyrus, and the central lateral nucleus of the thalamic intralaminar nucleus group. Nonpicro-toxin-treated animals exposed to unmodulated radia-tion showed the highest levels of neuronal c-Fos expression in cortical areas. These results suggest a specific effect of the pulse modulation of GSM radiation on brain activity of a picrotoxin-induced seizure-proneness rat model and indicate that this mobile-phone-type radiation might induce regional changes in previous preexcitability conditions of neuronal activation. VC 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Key words: seizure; cortex; hippocampus; thalamus