Article publication date
28 March 2026
ARPANSA review date
May 2026
Summary
This in vitro study investigated the effect of radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure on oxidative stress and cell viability markers (measure of the number of living, healthy cells in a sample) in two types of brain cell models. Cells were exposed to 5G modulated 700 MHz RF-EMF at three different specific absorption rates: 0, 0.08 and 4 W/kg for either 1 or 24 hours. During exposure the cells were maintained in a carefully controlled environment such that the temperature of each sample remained steady. Cells were analysed immediately after exposure and 24 hours after exposure for mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, cell viability, apoptosis and proliferation.
For both cell types, there was no effect of RF-EMF exposure on any endpoint at either time point. A positive control sample exposed to hydrogen peroxide was also used to validate the measurement tools which showed large effects.
Published in
Scientific Reports
Link to
ARPANSA commentary
Temperature control is important for in vitro studies as the cells, as they exist in the laboratory environment, are not supported by the thermoregulatory systems that exist in vivo. Without temperature control it becomes almost impossible to distinguish between RF-EMF exposure or simple heat as the origin of an observed effect from an experiment. This difference is important when extrapolating in vitro results to a health endpoint in an animal as the temperature rise observed in vitro would be mitigated by an animal’s thermoregulatory response. Similarly, the exposure limits prescribed in the Australian radiofrequency standard RPS-S1 are based on preventing adverse thermal effects in humans so for the results to have relevance to exposures experienced by the general public, temperature must be controlled.
Thus, the temperature control used in the present study is an important mark of high quality. Conversely, the method used to evaluate mitochondrial reactive oxygen species has notable issues that can reduce the reliability of the measurement if additional validation measures are not employed (Murphy et al., 2022; Roelofs et al., 2015). These factors highlight the importance of considering the quality of a study when synthesising evidence from multiple studies. Together with other well-conducted studies (Romeo et al., 2022; Meyer et al., 2024), this study contributes to a body of evidence that demonstrates a lack of adverse effects from RF-EMF exposure. It is also notable that this is one of few studies that has used 5G signal modulation on the 700 MHz band as most studies using this type of modulation have used the more commonly employed 3500 MHz band.
