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7/30/2019 Frey Ch1 On the Nature of Electromagnetic Field Interactions With Biological Systems 1996
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On the nature of electromagnetic field interactions with biological
systems.
Allan H Frey
Chapter 1
OVERVIEW AND PERSPECTIVE
Allan H. Frey
In recent years, a body of data on the interactions of exogenous
and endogenous electromagnetic fields with biological systems has been
gathered which is profoundly changing our understanding of biological
function. This book is intended to provide the reader with: 1) an
integration of many of the findings from this research that bear on the
nature of the interactions of electromagnetic fields with biological
systems, 2) a summarization of much of the cutting edge work on the
mechanisms and 3) an indication of its significance for biology.
The significance for biology can be understood if the reader
considers that if one used electromagnetic energy sensors to view the
world from space 100 years ago, the world would have looked quite
dim. Now, the world glows with electromagnetic (em) energy emissions
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at most frequencies of the nonionizing portion of the spectrum. It would
be incredible and beyond belief if these electromagnetic fields did not
affect the electrochemical systems we call living organisms. And since
living organisms have only so recently found themselves immersed in
this new and increasingly ubiquitous environment, they have not had
opportunity to adapt to it. This gives us, as biologists, the opportunity to
use exogenous em fields as probes to study the functioning of living
systems. We now also have a new technology to study endogenous em
fields. This is exciting since new approaches to studying living systems
so often provides the means to make great leaps in science.
Specifically, living organisms are complex electrochemical
systems that evolved over millions of years in a world with a relatively
weak magnetic field and with few electromagnetic energy emitters. As
is characteristic of living organisms, they interacted with and adapted to
their environment of electric and magnetic fields. One example of this
adaptation is the visual system, which is exquisitely sensitive to
emissions in the very narrow portion of the em spectrum that we call
light. Organisms, including humans, also adapted by using em energy to
regulate various critical cellular systems; we see this in the complex of
circadian rhythms. Fish, birds, and higher animals developed systems to
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use electromagnetic fields to sense prey and to navigate. Electromagnetic fields are also involved in neural membrane function;
even protein conformation involves the interactions of electrical fields. But as has often been the case in the history of science, though
these were interesting observations, they were disconnected bits and
pieces that made no real impact; they didn't fit the frame of reference of
the time. Further, the technology and techniques needed to do much
with the information did not exist. Thus, the very broad importance of
the interactions of electromagnetic fields with biological systems was
not really recognized. But that was yesterday. Now, as James Burke
1 might put it, is (figuratively) the day the Universe changed.
Organization of the chapters
In the next chapter, the second, I integrate many of the above
mentioned disconnected bits and pieces and show how they are
expressions of a common theme. In this way, I provide a context or
structure for viewing the information provided in the following chapters. The third chapter is a review, from the biophysical standpoint, of data
bearing on cell mechanisms. The authors of the fourth through sixth
chapters provide models for mechanisms at the cell membrane, some
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data on the membrane interactions of em fields and one provides a
broader view.
The seventh chapter begins a description of the events that occur
within the cell, from the cell membrane to the nucleus; the signal
cascade. The recounting of theory and data on the signal cascade is
continued through chapter ten. Chapters eleven and twelve are
concerned, to a limited extent, with the immune system and its
interaction with electromagnetic fields. The final chapters, thirteen and
fourteen, provide information on electromagnetic field interactions with
the nervous system. In this way, a coherent and detailed picture of the
current state-of-the-art is presented.
Before beginning the chapters on the nature of the interactions of
electromagnetic fields with biological systems, I will first provide a brief
review of some of the relevant basic physics for the reader unfamiliar
with the area; then I will discuss matters of importance for all readers
bearing on this area of research; then I will briefly mention minor
matters of which the reader, who is motivated to read further in the area,
should be aware. Incidentally, the rest of the physics and the equipment
needed to do biological research in this area of research is readily
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available and is no more difficult to learn than what we needed to learn
to do electrophysiology.
Nature of electromagnetic fields The earth is a magnet created by massive currents in the molten
portion of its core. These currents induce an approximately 0.5 gauss
dipolar magnetic field which varies over the surface of the earth. This is
an exogenous field to which all living organisms are essentially always
exposed. There are also a wide variety of natural and artificial
exogenous electromagnetic fields. The natural fields, such as light and
radio frequency emissions from lightning have always been in the
environment of living organisms. The artificial fields, such as
microwaves, radio waves and power line fields are a recent phenomena. The electromagnetic energy spectrum encompasses the
wavelengths from 3 x 107 meters to .003 angstroms as is indicated in Fig
1. This book is concerned with wavelengths longer than those that we
perceive as light. Electromagnetic energy is generated through a change
in the state of motion of an electrical charge. A change in state of
motion is accompanied by the emission or absorption of em energy. The
wavelength of emitted em energy is inversely proportional to the
magnitude of the energy change. As an example of emission, if
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electrons are caused to move to and fro along a conductor, the conductor
acts as a transmitting antenna and emits em energy; examples of this are
radio waves. When an electric current flows in a wire at extremely low
frequency, a magnetic field forms around and extends out from the wire;
examples of this are power line fields. Another example is em energy
that is perceived as visible light. This is generated as an electron
changes energy level in moving from one orbit to another in an atom.
Electromagnetic waves vary in space and time and have
associated with them a transport of energy. The physically varying
quantity is really a set of quantities, i.e. electric and magnetic field
vectors. There is an electric (E) field, defined by the force that is exerted
on an electric charge placed in the field and a magnetic (H) field, defined
by the force exerted upon a small electric current element. These fields
vary at any given point with time.
The electric and magnetic fields in an em wave are not
independent entities. Describing the basic transverse wave, they are
perpendicular to each other, and they are both perpendicular to the
direction of propagation. As Figure 2 illustrates, the basic transverse em
wave is one in which E and H vary sinusoidally with a fixed relationship
to each other and to time and space.
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There are also standing waves; these are relevant to biology. When an em wave encounters a change in the properties of a medium
such as tissue layers, a partial reflection, absorption, and transmission
occurs. The reflected wave is superimposed upon the incident wave and
gives rise to a standing or locally intensified wave. The energy can be
polarized and the orientation of a conductor, e.g. tissue or wire, can have
a significant effect on the energy distribution. The amount of current, for
example, induced in a wire by an em field is a function of the wire's
orientation with reference to the field.
A wave fluctuating at a frequency of millions of cycles per
second that is propagating through space can be used as a carrier for
various types and frequencies of modulation. This is a significant point
from the biological standpoint, both in terms of effect and measurement. For example, photic driving of the brain occurs with appropriately
modulated light, not with a constant light.
The foregoing capsule review provides the basic information
needed to understand the content of the following chapters.
Matters of importance bearing on the experimentation
As a result of this area of research having its real start because of
a concern about hazards in the 1940's, the tendency has been for people
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to use a toxicology model as their frame of reference in the selection,
design and analyses of experiments. They have tended to set up
experiments to look for a "dose-response relationship" between
electromagnetic field exposure and a biological variable. But is a
toxicology model appropriate as a guide for biological research with
electromagnetic fields? It's a crucial question for, as Burke 1 and others
have made quite clear our frame of reference determines what we look at
and how we look. And as a consequence, this determines what we find . Theory and data show that this is the wrong model 2,3,4.
Electromagnetic fields are not a foreign substance to living beings like
lead or cyanide. With foreign substances, the greater the dose, the
greater the effect — a dose-response relationship. Rather, living beings
are electrochemical systems that use very low frequency electromagnetic
fields in everything from protein folding through cellular communication
to nervous system function. To model how em fields affect living
beings, one might compare them to the radio we use to listen to music.
The em signal the radio picks up and transduces into the sound of
music is almost unmeasureably weak. At the same time there are, in
toto, strong em fields impinging on the radio. We don't notice the
stronger em signals because they are not the appropriate frequency or
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modulation. Thus, they don't disturb the music we hear. However, if
you impose on the radio an appropriately tuned em field or harmonic,
even if it is very weak, it will interfere with the music.
Similarly, if we
impose a very weak em signal on a living being, it has the possibility of
interfering with normal function if it is properly tuned. This is the
model that much biological data and theory tell us to use, not a
toxicology model.
There are other matters of importance that I would like to bring
to your attention. The physiological state of the organism or specimen
and individual differences among them are of consequence. This is true
in many areas of biology but it is quite clearly true when using
electromagnetic fields as a probe to study biological processes. Some of
the authors in the following chapters provide specific examples of this
fact.
There are specific windows of effectiveness for certain carrier
frequencies and modulation frequencies of electromagnetic energy. There are also intensity windows. These also will be seen in some of the
chapters. But this is so important that it bears taking specific notice of it
here.
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The nature of the geomagnetic field in the location where the
experiment is done is also of consequence as is the time of day of the
exposure. This will also become clear in the course of reading several of
the chapters in this book. It appears possible that an organism's response to a low
frequency modulated field is the same as its response to exposure to a
high frequency field which is acting as a carrier for low frequency
modulation. Thus, I have made no attempt to separate out, as different,
data from experiments using low frequency em fields, high frequency
em fields and what are conventionally termed low frequency magnetic
fields.
For the sake of clarity in my discussion, I refer to
electromagnetic fields as being generated by the organism (endogenous)
or as being generated outside of the organism (exogenous). It is
important to keep in mind that the organism does not make such a
distinction. If the exogenous field has the appropriate characteristics, it
can substitute in a biosystem for the endogenous field that normally
interacts with that biosystem. Two somewhat analogous situations will
make this clear. The nervous system doesn't care if the opioid it uses is
self-generated or if it comes as heroin from a poppy plant. The heart
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responds to the signal from a man-made pacemaker as well as to a signal
from its own. The ubiquitousness of em fields is also a matter of concern to us
from another standpoint, as experimenters. It is relevant to the question
of controls needed in many biological experiments that seemingly have
nothing to do with electromagnetic fields. Look about the lab and
consider the em fields now being imposed on test specimens by all the
electrical devices in use. How do they influence the results of biological
experiments? This is incidentally touched on in a later chapter.
Minor matters of which one should be aware
Since this area of biological research had its origin in the physics
and engineering communities' concern about the hazards of their high
power equipment in the 1940's, most of the literature on em field
interactions published before the mid 1980's is irrelevant to us as
biologists. Little attention was paid to the variables that are important in
biology. But out of this history came some notions that are not seen in
other areas of biological research. If this book motivates the reader to
read more extensively on the subject, he will come across the residue of
these notions. Thus, I will briefly discuss them here.
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Thermal vs non-thermal. From the 1940's through the 1970's
there was a great deal of heated discussion concerning whether
biological effects of exogenous em fields were all "thermal" or some
could be "non-thermal". This led to much fruitless experimentation. As
I noted in one of my papers 5, the thermal vs non-thermal controversy
was one of semantics, not science. There was no common definition of
the words and the proponents talked past each other. Some were
defining thermal in terms of core temperature measured with a rectal
thermometer, whereas others were talking about molecular motion. Further, since the technology did not exist to measure molecular motion,
for example, at a membrane interface during exposure to an em field,
this was a fruitless argument. In addition, the words thermal and non-
thermal are labels, not specifications of biological mechanisms.
As an interesting aside though, one implication of the dopamine-
opiate hypothesis discussed in the next chapter is that em energy
exposure would likely affect the hypothalamic set-point for body
temperature regulation. The mechanism that sets the body's temperature
is located in the hypothalamus and the dopamine-opiate systems are
believed to play an important role in the adjustment of this mechanism
6,7. With all the supporting data on em field effects that have now been
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collected, it seems likely that exposure to low intensity em energy could
influence the hypothalamic set-point via the dopamine-opiate systems. The consequence would be a body temperature shift and this has been
reported 8. This is an ironic twist.
SAR. In the 1970's there was a well meaning effort to work out a
dosimetry. The desire was to be able to specify the exposure to em
energy at a relevant point within an organism. Thus, the specific
absorption rate (SAR) concept was developed. In essence, the SAR is a
calculated energy absorption in an assumed homogenous mass of tissue.
All of us are more comfortable when we can quantify in a neat
sort of way. Thus, obtaining a number for dose by use of the SAR
concept is satisfying. But does the SAR concept have any value in the
context of living breathing organisms or is it misleading in that context? If, in fact, the SAR was a point measurement within an organism of the
strength of the field at the locus of an identified biological mechanism,
then everything would be fine. But it is not that. It is a calculated value
from calorimetry or incident field measurement, resting on a foundation
of assumptions. In addition, it is assumed that an average calculated
value for a homogenous whole body mass of tissue is relevant to what
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the field is at a point at the locus of a biological mechanism of an effect. But the mechanism and its locus are also unknowns.
I can see the SAR concept having value now with very simple
cell suspension systems. But it has been indiscriminately used to
provide what amounts to a very precise appearing, but pseudo-exposure
number in reports of all sorts of biological experiments - right up to
man. That is the problem and is what the reader has to be alert to. Living organisms are not a homogenous mass, a cup of tea. It matters
where the energy is deposited. One example is all that is needed to
illustrate the problem. If a bullet is fired into the calf of a person's leg,
there will be a deposition of energy and he will be most unhappy. He
might require a day of hospitalization. If the bullet was fired through his
brain, there would be the same deposition of energy, but the result would
be quite different.
Thus, might it not be best at this time to report measured incident
energy, possibly with a "tentative SAR". Then, at such time as we can
exactly specify mechanism, locus of effect, and a non-perturbing means
of making a point measurement in an organism, we can then go back and
use the reported incident energy to calculate a relevant number. For now,
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the reader must be wary in reading the interpretations of experiments in
which only SARs are given. Implicit assumptions.
I can think of no better way to start this
section than with a quotation from James Burke 1
"Today we live according to the latest version of how the
universe functions. This view affects our behavior and thought, just as
previous versions affected those who lived with them. Like the people
of the past, we disregard phenomena which do not fit our view because
they are 'wrong'.... Like our ancestors, we know the real truth.
At any time in the past, people have held a view of the way the
universe works which was for them similarly definitive.... And at any
time, that view they held was sooner or later altered by changes in the
body of knowledge."
An example will illustrate his point. In 1915 a German
meteorologist named Alfred Wegener, noting the shape of the continents
and the distribution of fossils, proposed that the continents drifted apart. He suggested that they floated on a sea of heavier basaltic material.
To paraphrase Burke, the proposal was greeted with universal
scorn. The naysayers said that there was no known mechanism which
could move the continents. The soft land masses obviously could not
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plow through the hard ocean floor. The problems Wegener had posed
were called pseudo-problems. The bio-geographical similarities of the
fossils were explained away as due to land bridges and blown seeds.
Since the continents did not fit exactly, his proposal had to be wrong. For thirty years Wegener's view was ignored.
In the 1950s, the newly invented magnetometers had shown that
the earth had a magnetic field which was parallel to the axis of rotation. By 1966 magnetic profiles showed that the ocean floor was spreading
outward from the mid-ocean ridges, and it was clear that this mechanism
had slowly pushed the continents apart. This was a mechanism that had
not, and until magnetometers were invented, could not have been
envisioned by the naysayers; besides, they already knew the "real truth".
Or leaving Burke, consider that it used to be a firmly held dogma
of physics that the basic laws of nature are symmetric under reflection.
The quantity conserved by virtue of reflection symmetry is called parity. Every physicist accepted the "law" that parity is conserved.
Then, some particle-collision experiments done by high-energy
physicists resulted in puzzling data for which there were only two
possible explanations: either there were two particles, or else parity was
not conserved in nature. Since violation of a "law" of physics was
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considered absurd, physicists were left with the "tau-theta puzzle"; the
data was in limbo. But then an incredible proposal was made by two physicists, T.
D. Lee and C.N. Yang, they proposed that parity is in fact not conserved;
nature is not symmetric under mirror reflection.
The first reaction of most physicists to the Lee-Yang proposal was
incredulity. Wolfgang Pauli, discoverer of the neutrino, electron spin,
and the Pauli exclusion principle, ridiculed the idea of nonconservation
of parity in the weak interactions. The simple confirming experiments
were done by C. S. Wu; and Lee and Yang were awarded the Nobel
Prize.
So why have I presented this brief discourse? This area of
biological research is not privileged, it also has its few naysayers who
imagine that they are the possessors of "real truth". The reader who is
motivated to venture into the literature will find them. They like to talk
about the dogma, the "laws of physics". If the data do not conform to
the dogma, then the data must be wrong.
But one does not challenge data with the current dogma. That's
upside down, its the dogma that is tested by data obtained with
constantly increasing precision of measurement and observation.
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Observations improve, particularly the ability to measure more and see
more. The test of data is additional, more precise data or data obtained
with new techniques. This is the great leap in thinking that created
Science out of the thinking of the Medieval Age. It is to be expected
that theories conceived at one level of observation will have to be
modified as observational ability improves. This is what some scientists
ignore. They implicitly assume that they have reached a "fundamental"
level of understanding, which leaves no room for even more
fundamental levels of understanding.
References
1. Burke J. The day the Universe Changed. Boston: Little and Co, 1985.
2. Frey A H. Electromagnetic field interactions with biological
systems. FASEB Journal 1993; 7:272-281
3. Frey A H. Evolution and results of biological research with low-
intensity nonionizing radiation. In: A. A. Marino, ed. Modern
Bioelectricity New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc 1988: 785-837.
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4. Frey A H. Biological function as influenced by low power modulated
RF energy. IEEE Trans on Microwave Theory and Techniques 1971;
MTT-19:153-164
5. Frey AH. Behavioral biophysics. Psychol Bull 1965; 63:322-337
6. Weiss J, Thompson ML, and Shuster L. Effects of naloxone and
naltrexone on drug-induced hypothermia in mice. Neuropharmacology
1984; 23(5):483-489
7. Glick SD and Guido RA. Naloxone antagonism of the
thermoregulatory effects of phencyclidine. Science 1982; 217(24):
1272-1273
8. Lai H, Horita A, and Chou C et al. The pharmacology of post
exposure hyperthermia response to acute exposure to 2450 MHz pulsed
microwaves. Bioelectromagnetics Society Sixth Annual Meeting,
Atlanta, GA, 1984.
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Figure captions
Fig. 1
Electromagnetic field spectrum.
ELF refers to extremely low
frequency waves in a broad sense; this includes power line frequencies. X refers to ionizing radiation such as x-rays. This book is primarily
concerned with the portion of the spectrum from infrared through ELF.
Fig. 2 Spatial variation of E and H in a simple TEM wave.