Some key strategies can enable NGOs and universities to work together much more efficiently as they strive to achieve common goals with societal impact.
Image credit: International Committee of the Red Cross/Jacob Zocherman.
Edited* by William Happer, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved October 26, 2012 (received for review April 5, 2012)
Abstract
A method is described for measuring absorbed electromagnetic energy radiated from cell phone antennae into ex vivo brain tissue. NMR images the 3D thermal dynamics inside ex vivo bovine brain tissue and equivalent gel under exposure to power and irradiation time-varying radio frequency (RF) fields. The absorbed RF energy in brain tissue converts into Joule heat and affects the nuclear magnetic shielding and the Larmor precession. The resultant temperature increase is measured by the resonance frequency shift of hydrogen protons in brain tissue. This proposed application of NMR thermometry offers sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to characterize the hot spots from absorbed cell phone radiation in aqueous media and biological tissues. Specific absorption rate measurements averaged over 1 mg and 10 s in the brain tissue cover the total absorption volume. Reference measurements with fiber optic temperature sensors confirm the accuracy of the NMR thermometry.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: gultekid{at}mskcc.org or lothar.moeller{at}alcatel-lucent.com.
Author contributions: D.H.G. and L.M. designed research, performed research, contributed new reagents/analytic tools, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
Radiation absorption in brain
Article Classifications
- Physical Sciences
- Physics
- Biological Sciences
- Biophysics and Computational Biology
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