The increasing use of mobile phones by teenagers has raised concern about the cognitive effects of radiofrequency (RF) fields. In this study, we investigated the effects of 4-week exposure to a 1.8 GHz RF field on the emotional behavior and spatial memory of adolescent male mice. Anxiety-like behavior was evaluated by open field test (OFT) and elevated plus maze (EPM) test, while depression-like behavior was evaluated by sucrose preference test (SPT), tail suspension test (TST) and forced swim test (FST). The spatial learning and memory ability were evaluated by Morris water maze (MWM) experiments. The levels of amino acid neurotransmitters were determined by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). The histology of the brain was examined by hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining. It was found that the depression-like behavior, spatial memory ability and histology of the brain did not change obviously after RF exposure. However, the anxiety-like behavior increased in mice, while, the levels of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and aspartic acid (Asp) in cortex and hippocampus significantly decreased after RF exposure. These data suggested that RF exposure under these conditions do not affect the depression-like behavior, spatial memory and brain histology in adolescent male mice, but it may however increase the level of anxiety, and GABA and Asp were probably involved in this effect.
Keywords: RF field; amino acid neurotransmitters; anxiety-like behavior; depression-like behavior; spatial memory.