Levent Tümkaya; Yıldıray Kalkan; Fatih Mehmet Gökçe; Basar Erdivanlı; Adnan Yılmaz; Ilkay Bahcecı; Zihni Acar Yazıci & Tolga Mercantepe

Mobile phone use has increased rapidly. The central nervous system has been shown to be adversely affected by its electromagnetic field (EMF) resulting in headache and sleep disturbances. How the cells make up the CNS and are affected by EMF is unclear. However, because of their central role in inflammation through diverse stimuli including radiation, this study aimed to investigate the effects of electromagnetic fields induced by mobile phones on mast cells in rat dura mater. A total of 18 adult, female, Sprague- Dawley rats were divided into two groups. The choice of female rats for his study was based on recent surveys demonstrating that mobile phone use is more frequent and prolonged among females. The study group was exposed to 900 MHz electromagnetic field (1 h/day for 45 days). In the end of the study, duramater tissue was extracted and stained using Toluidine blue. Mast cells were counted and results were analysed using Student t test. Mean mast cell number was 202.33±982 and 456.78±35.01 in the control and study groups, respectively (p<0.05). Analysis of serum electrolyte and immunoglobulin E levels showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p>0.05). The study showed that mobile phone exposure increased mast cell number and degranulation in rat dura mater. Further studies are required to evaluate the clinical implications of these findings.

KEY WORDS: Mobile phone; Mast cell; Electromagnetic field; Dura mater; Rat.

TÜMKAYA, L.; KALKAN, Y.; GÖKÇE, F. M.; ERDIVANLI, B.; YILMAZ, A.; BAHCECI, I.; YAZICI, Z. A. & MERCANTEPE, T. The effects of mobile phone exposure on mast cells in rat dura mater. Int. J. Morphol., 37(2):719-723, 2019.