Behavioral effects of electric and magnetic fields. Final report, January 1, 1985--March 31, 1991

Technical Report · Wed Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:10149696

Laties, V G

Two set of behavioral studies were conducted. (1) Electric field: Three procedures were used to determine how aversive a 100 kV/m 60-Hz electric field is for the rat. Each of the procedures enabled rats to respond in order to reduce exposure to the field. The rats did reduce exposure slightly with one, but not with the other two, whereas they reduced their exposure to moderate illumination in all three procedures. The results show that while the procedures were appropriate for assessing stimulus aversiveness, 100 kV/m is not a generally aversive stimulus for the rat. (2) Magnetic Field: Thomas, Schrot and Liboff [Bioelectromagnetics: 7: 349--357 (1986)] reported that immediately after exposure for 30 min to a horizontal 60-Hz, 5 {times} 10{sup {minus}5}T field combined with a total static field of 2.61 {times} 10{sup {minus}5}T, the rate of lever pressing by rats increased during the DRL component of a multiple fixed ratio, DRL schedule of food reinforcement. This project failed to confirm those observations in an experiment that duplicated the behavioral baseline and the magnetic field exposure conditions, with the exception that the total DC vector was greater in these Rochester experiments than it was in Thomas et al, which was done in Bethesda, MD.

• Research Organization: Rochester Univ., NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-85CE76254
• OSTI ID: 10149696
• Report Number(s): DOE/CE/76254--10; ON: DE92014968
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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