Abstract
Animal studies have shown that electromagnetic field exposure may interfere with the activity of brain cells, thereby generating behavioral and cognitive disturbances. However, the underlying mechanisms and possible preventions are still unknown. In this study, we used a mouse model to examine the effects of exposure to extremely low-frequency (50 Hz) electromagnetic fields (ELF MFs) on a recognition memory task and morphological changes of hippocampal neurons. The data showed that ELF MFs exposure (1 mT, 12 h/day) induced a time-dependent deficit in novel object associative recognition memory and also decreased hippocampal dendritic spine density. This effect was observed without corresponding changes in spontaneous locomotor activity and was transient, which has only been seen after exposing mice to ELF MFs for 7-10 days. The over-expression of hippocampal neuritin, an activity-dependent neurotrophic factor, using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector significantly increased the neuritin level and dendritic spine density. This increase was paralleled with ELF MFs exposure-induced deficits in recognition memory and reductions of dendritic spine density. Collectively, our study provides evidence for the association between ELF MFs exposure, impairment of recognition memory, and resulting changes in hippocampal dendritic spine density. Neuritin prevented this ELF MFs-exposure-induced effect by increasing the hippocampal spine density.
Highlights
Animal studies have shown that electromagnetic field exposure may interfere with the activity of brain cells, thereby generating behavioral and cognitive disturbances
We examined whether over-expression of neuritin could reverse the decrease in spine densities and the subsequent deficits in recognition memory in mice exposed to ELF MFs
Leone et al (2014) reported that the ELF MFs-exposed mice (1 mT; 50 Hz; 3.5 h/day for 12 days) showed a higher discrimination ability compared with controls, and exposure to ELF MFs modulated adult hippocampal neurogenesis by epigenetic mechanisms leading to pro-neuronal gene expression[24]
Summary
Animal studies have shown that electromagnetic field exposure may interfere with the activity of brain cells, thereby generating behavioral and cognitive disturbances. The data showed that ELF MFs exposure (1 mT, 12 h/day) induced a time-dependent deficit in novel object associative recognition memory and decreased hippocampal dendritic spine density. This effect was observed without corresponding changes in spontaneous locomotor activity and was transient, which has only been seen after exposing mice to ELF MFs for 7-10 days. Our study provides evidence for the association between ELF MFs exposure, impairment of recognition memory, and resulting changes in hippocampal dendritic spine density Neuritin prevented this ELF MFs-exposure-induced effect by increasing the hippocampal spine density. Whether exposure to ELF MFs results in a decrement of dendritic spine density and whether this is concurrent with deficits in NORT are unclear
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