Literature review date
September 2024
Article publication date
July 2024
Summary
This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the effect of radiofrequency electromagnetic energy (RF EME) on cognitive performance in human experimental studies. The review included 50 studies in the meta-analysis (2,433 participants) from 15 countries that were conducted between 2001 and 2021. It assessed cognitive performance of five (of the 7) cognitive domains (Orientation and attention, Perception, Memory, Construction and motor performance, and Concept formation and reasoning), including 19 (of 35) cognitive domain subclasses as defined by Lezak et al (2004). Each subclass was assessed based on the speed and accuracy of the participant performing tasks associated with that particular subclass (attentional capacity, concentration, etc). Most of the included studies used 2G-era mobile phone RF EME as the exposure source. Certainty of evidence and risk of bias were also evaluated according to OHAT-GRADE approach.
The authors reported no statistically significant results, indicating that RF-EME exposure has not impact on cognitive performance on human in experimental studies for all of the 19 subclasses tested. However, the certainty in these results ranged from high to low. Three of the 19 subclasses were not able to be tested for both speed and accuracy. Of 35 meta-analyses performed on the subclasses, a majority (20) of them provided high certainty of evidence that RF EME exposure results in little to no difference in cognitive outcome. The evidence on the effect of RF EME on the remaining 16 subclasses of the cognitive domains was uncertain. This uncertainty was due to limitations in the study quality, inconsistency in the results or imprecision of the combined effect size estimate. Overall, the review reported no evidence that RF EME exposure impacts cognitive performance.
Link to
Published in
Environment International
ARPANSA commentary
The overall conclusion of the review was that RF EME exposure does not impact cognitive performance in human experimental studies. This systematic review is the most comprehensive that has been published on this topic as it considered all cognitive domains and people of all ages. Other recent reviews and meta-analyses have had similar outcomes (Valentini et al, 2010; Barth et al ,2011; Zubko et al, 2017) reporting no impact of mobile phone frequencies on short term cognitive performance. However, these studies only examined a few cognitive domains including, attention, processing speed and working memory. Further, these reviews did not assess the quality or risk of bias of their included studies in the same manner as this systematic review. For example, Barth et al (2011) performed no quality assessment; Valentini et al (2010) used a simple assessment that assessed the blinding, participant selection, exposure assessment and statistics used. Zubko et al (2017) did use the risk of bias tool developed by OHAT, however, it did not assess the certainty of the evidence according to the GRADE approach.
This review is part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ongoing project assessing the health effects of RF-EMF. ARPANSA is supporting this WHO review process. One of the WHO systematic reviews has examined the long-term impacts on cognition of RF EME exposure (Benke et al 2024). This review was conducted in Australia and was co-led by ARPANSA scientists. This systematic review also reported that RF EME had no consistent impact on cognition.
Overall, the results from this systematic review are consistent with previous research and ARPANSA’s scientific understanding that exposure to RF EME below the limits in the ARPANSA RF safety standard do not cause health impacts, including cognitive outcomes.
