Abstract
Brain tissue may be especially sensitive to electromagnetic phenomena provoking signs of neural stress in cerebral activity. Fifty-four adult female Sprague-Dawley rats underwent ELISA and immunohistochemistry testing of four relevant anatomical areas of the cerebrum to measure biomarkers indicating induction of heat shock protein 70 (HSP-70), glucocorticoid receptors (GCR) or glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) after single or repeated exposure to 2.45 GHz radiation in the experimental set-up. Neither radiation regime caused tissue heating, so thermal effects can be ruled out. A progressive decrease in GCR and HSP-70 was observed after acute or repeated irradiation in the somatosensory cortex, hypothalamus and hippocampus. In the limbic cortex; however, values for both biomarkers were significantly higher after repeated exposure to irradiation when compared to control animals. GFAP values in brain tissue after irradiation were not significantly different or were even lower than those of nonirradiated animals in all brain regions studied. Our results suggest that repeated exposure to 2.45 GHz elicited GCR/HSP-70 dysregulation in the brain, triggering a state of stress that could decrease tissue anti-inflammatory action without favoring glial proliferation and make the nervous system more vulnerable.
Highlights
The use of radiofrequencies is increasing exponentially in different fields such as medicine [1], wireless communication devices and networks, and even space missions [2].Extensive, widespread use of 2.45 GHz radiation, in particular, is continuing to grow [3], raising issues about potential health risks, especially to the nervous system [4,5,6].Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs), known as chaperones or stress proteins, are highly conserved evolutionary proteins [7] found in almost all organisms
In the research presented here, we studied the evolution of heat shock protein 70 (HSP-70) and glucocorticoid receptor (GCR) cellstress biomarkers along with glial activation (GFAP) in rat brain in response to single and repeated exposure to nonthermal 2.45 GHz radiation at different postexposure times: 90 min and 24 h after acute irradiation and 90 min after repeated irradiation
We observed that the stress biomarkers HSP-70 and GCR exhibited parallel behavior in most of the regions studied and presented lower levels than the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) astrocyte activation biomarker after irradiation, but were not significantly different or even lower than those of nonradiated animals in all the regions studied
Summary
The use of radiofrequencies is increasing exponentially in different fields such as medicine [1], wireless communication devices and networks, and even space missions [2].Extensive, widespread use of 2.45 GHz radiation, in particular, is continuing to grow [3], raising issues about potential health risks, especially to the nervous system [4,5,6].Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs), known as chaperones or stress proteins, are highly conserved evolutionary proteins [7] found in almost all organisms. The use of radiofrequencies is increasing exponentially in different fields such as medicine [1], wireless communication devices and networks, and even space missions [2]. Widespread use of 2.45 GHz radiation, in particular, is continuing to grow [3], raising issues about potential health risks, especially to the nervous system [4,5,6]. Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs), known as chaperones or stress proteins, are highly conserved evolutionary proteins [7] found in almost all organisms. They are upregulated in response to various stressors [8,9,10] for cytoprotection through the repair or degradation of damaged proteins [11]. Radiofrequencies are known to influence HSP-70 expression [15,16,17,18]
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